Sophisticated devices used for detonation as experts work

  BY FRANCES ROBLES

  BOGOTA - It wasn't long ago that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia had an unspoken agreement with the Colombian police.

  Rebels would plant a stick of dynamite, a timer and sometimes even a big sign, ''CAR BOMB!'' The bomb squad dismantled it, and everyone went home
  happy. The FARC got its publicity and chaos, and the techs made sure nobody was killed.

  But the rules are changing in Colombia's 38-year civil war. Now the FARC -- possibly with some training from the Irish Republican Army -- is using more
  sophisticated explosives with photo-sensitive, motion-sensing and remote control devices with a single objective: to do away with the nation's bomb
  squad. Booby traps and other tricks already have killed at least six technicians this year, including the country's top expert.

  Police officials say they have lost 10 percent of their bomb squad experts in the past year because they have become preferred targets for the rebels.

  As more bombs are placed around the country on bicycles, bodies, burros, buses and dogs, experts are wondering whether a country that is
  underequipped and underfunded in an expensive and dangerous field can win this battle. As Colombia fights leftist rebels who use the element of
  surprise to their advantage, the government is losing, one by one, the only people trained to fight back.

  ''I lost three friends here in one month,'' said Lt. José Calán, chief of the Colombian judicial police's anti-explosives unit. ``Whoever says he isn't scared
  isn't telling the truth.''

  Calán was promoted last month; his boss died defusing a car bomb. It was the death of anti-explosives chief Capt. Germán Ruíz that made it obvious
  who the latest wave of bombs were meant to hurt.

  TARGETING

  In the early hours of April 9, peasants found an abandoned green pick-up truck with a dead body in it alongside a road in Sibate, 20 miles outside
  Bogotá.

  They called police, who noticed the car was rigged. Police and peasants waited all night for the bomb squad, which arrived at daybreak to work with the
  advantage of daylight. Ruíz, who dismantled 200 bombs during his 10-year career, approached the car with an assistant.

  They started snipping at wires when the truck exploded; it was set off by remote control. Someone in town was watching and killed the captain on
  purpose.

  ''A uniformed officer goes by, nothing, a citizen goes by, nothing,'' Calán said. ``It's when the bomb technician arrives that the bomb goes off.''

  According to a U.S. House International Relations Committee report, the advanced techniques and targeting of police are the direct result of IRA influence.

  ARRESTS MADE

  Last summer, two members of the IRA, along with a representative of Sinn Fein, the IRA's political wing, were arrested here after leaving what was then
  a safe zone granted to the FARC by the Colombian government. While the men claimed they were there tracking the peace process, investigators say
  they were carrying false passports and had traces of explosives on their clothing.

  ''Two of the Irish nationals were the IRA's leading explosives engineer and a mortar expert,'' the House report stated.

  Indicted this year, the IRA members are charged with training rebels in the use of explosives.

  Police say the IRA taught the FARC how to use mortars, a type of artillery perched on the back of a pick-up that hurls powerful shells. A mortar attack was
  blamed for the death of 119 civilians hiding in a church earlier this month.

  ''Targeting police is a traditional IRA tactic: It creates absolute panic and fear,'' said a House GOP aide who helped prepare the report. ``Cops are
  reluctant to grab things that will blow up. Colombia lost its No. 1 technician. That tells you a lot. You have to imagine how well that was rigged.''

  Although statistics are not available, police say the use of explosives, and its deliberate use against police technicians, has increased considerably since
  peace talks began faltering in January.

  That month, two policemen, a 5-year-old girl and three members of her family were killed when a bicycle bomb exploded in Bogotá's Fátima neighborhood.
  At first, the attack seemed random. Then police realized its target: Josefa's Restaurant, where the sixth precinct bomb squad members frequently
  lunched. Another device hidden among groceries in an abandoned shopping cart was dismantled the same afternoon.

  Pastrana called off the peace talks with the FARC on Feb. 20 after the group kidnapped prominent Sen. Jorge Gechen Turbay by forcing down the airplane
  in which he was traveling.

  Days later, a bus bomb killed two soldiers trying to detonate it. In April, a technician working on a Ford loaded with 22 pounds of explosives was killed by
  a second bomb.

  `YOU FIND COURAGE'

  ''Who's not going to be afraid?'' said Jesús Rodríguez, a bomb technician with the Department of Administrative Security, Colombia's equivalent of the FBI.
  ``When I saw Capt. Ruíz -- what was left of him -- I had to collect the pieces of my co-workers and leave to work another case. It's good to have fear. In
  fear, you find courage.''

  In the past six months, experts have seen more and more bombs set with devices that are sensitive to movement, light or pressure. If an explosive
  device equipped with a photo cell is in a car's trunk and the technician opens it, he dies. If he moves a box rigged with a mercury switch, he's dead. One
  technician was killed when he leaned on a car seat to cut dangling wires -- the seat was fitted with a pressurized switch.

  Rebels are also more frequently using the ''hunting fools'' technique: luring emergency personnel with a weak bomb, only to kill them off with a second.

  ''They're using everything, chemicals, electronics -- they've done it all,'' said a special prosecutor who, for security reasons, did not want his name used.
  ``It's macabre.''

  `WE HAVE LUCK'

  While Colombia's roughly 200 technicians are considered well-trained, U.S. experts say they are woefully behind in the equipment, such as X-ray and
  signal blockers, needed to overcome FARC traps. Colombia has only one or two of the $150,000 robots used to dismantle devices, and too few bomb
  suits that cost up to $15,000 each.

  ''Excessive confidence kills,'' Rodríguez said. ``We're using old-fashioned manual methods. The terrorists have evolved, and we have to as well. Beyond
  that, we have God and we have luck.''

  But Colombia's vast geography makes it difficult to put the anti-explosive gadgets to use throughout the nation. Sometimes, Rodríguez said, technicians
  have to walk hours to even reach a site -- impossible to do while lugging heavy suits or robots.

  Most Colombian technicians attend training provided by the ATF, yet approach bombs armed with only a vest that holds pliers and cutters.

  ''It's not always what you want to do, but what you have to do,'' Calán said. ``The terrorist doesn't sleep, and neither can we.''