By REUTERS

          TOLEMAIDA MILITARY BASE, Colombia -- Hundreds of
          troops parachuted from planes Tuesday and dropped from
          helicopters on ropes as Colombia inaugurated an elite combat unit to fight
          guerrillas.

          The new Rapid Deployment Force, together with a recently created
          antinarcotics battalion and a new river brigade, is part of a program
          backed by the United States to upgrade the military.

          The three units are the center of a strategy intended to force the guerrillas
          to negotiate an end to the conflict that has cost more than 35,000 lives in
          the last 10 years.

          President Andrés Pastrana began talks with the Revolutionary Armed
          Forces of Colombia, Latin America's largest surviving 1960's rebel army,
          in January. But there has been no letup in the three-decade war, and the
          rebels have kept their goal of trying to take power.

          The force includes troops from three mobile counterinsurgency brigades,
          a Special Forces group trained by the United States and an artillery unit.
          It is backed by aircraft including 15 Blackhawk helicopters made in the
          United States.

          During the last three years, the estimated 20,000 rebels, who control up
          to half the country, have struck a series of devastating blows against the
          army, which fields no more than about 50,000 combatants. During the
          last year, however, the armed forces have used air power to repel at
          least two nationwide guerrilla offensives.