Kidnapped

Any updates on this, Pitter? Please keep us posted.

NY Times - 8:00 PM EDT, Friday, Sept 19
Filed at 8:00 PM EDT on the NY Times web site:

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Colombian Group Says It Seeking Kidnapped Tourists
By REUTERS

Filed at 8:00 p.m. ET

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - A Colombian right-wing militia said on Friday it was helping in the search for eight foreign tourists who were snatched near the ruins of an ancient Indian city last week.

Adding its voice to those of other outlaw groups professing their innocence, the Tayrona Counter-insurgency Bloc said it was working "day and night'' to rescue the hostages.

"We are not the authors of these reprehensible acts,'' it said in a statement.

Camouflaged gunmen kidnapped four Israelis, two Britons, a Spaniard and a German on Sept. 12 and, according to witnesses, marched them away into the thick jungles of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

The government and the Colombian armed forces have blamed the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a 17,000-member Marxist rebel army known by its Spanish initials FARC.

But the FARC on Tuesday also denied any role. They suggested Colombian military intelligence was behind the kidnapping so it could stage a fake rescue to bolster the government's popularity.

The tourists -- who ignored U.S. and foreign travel warnings -- were trying to reach Colombia's "Lost City,'' a 2,500-year-old Indian ruin a two-day hike from the Caribbean coast.

Several outlaw armies have a presence in the remote, northern mountains where the tourists were kidnapped, including the smaller, Cuban-inspired National Liberation Army, known by its Spanish initials ELN. The FARC and the ELN rebel groups both regularly take hostages, usually looking for ransom money to fill war chests.

Drug smugglers are rife near the coast, and there are also common criminals looking for quick ransom money.

More than 1,000 people have been abducted so far this year in Colombia, far-and-away the most likely place to be kidnapped on the planet. The guerrilla conflict, already in its fourth decade, claims thousands of lives every year.




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Update
Update: The FARC, the largest and most poerfull guerrilla group has denied responsibility for the kidnapping. As sneaky as they are they usually acknowlege acts like this so there is speculation now that it was the ELN, the smaller but also very dangerous leftist group.