COLOMBIA: The Colombian civil war has moved to the cities, many observers believe, following a car-bomb explosion at an exclusive Bogota social club at the weekend that left 32 dead - six of them children - and over 160 injured.
Mr Conor Colleary (29) from Sandycove, Dublin, was using a gym in the same building when the bomb went off, according to the Sunday Tribune. While he was in a state of shock after the blast, he was uninjured.
Residents of the Colombian capital watched in stunned silence yesterday as rescue workers continued taking bodies from the wreckage of the El Nogal (Walnut Tree) leisure complex in the north of the city. The rescue workers set up a temporary morgue in tents outside the building.
Bodies, many charred from the fire which burned for two hours after the explosion, were carried out on stretchers.
The Colombian Vice-President, Mr Francisco Santos, blamed the explosion on the Marxist rebels of FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) which has been engaged in a guerrilla conflict against the State that has lasted four decades and left more than 200,000 people dead.
This war was largely confined to rural areas up to recently but there have been growing indications that the FARC, which has connections with Colombia's illegal drug trade, has embarked on a new stage of urban warfare.
Some sources cautioned that the bomb may have been related to drug lords.
Condemning the blast as a "barbaric act of terrorism", President Bush pledged US support for the Colombian people against "narcoterrorists who threaten their democratic way of life".
The United Nations Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, also condemned the attack: "Their ends do not justify the means. The heartless killing of innocent civilians will only deepen the conflict and further undermine hopes for peace that Colombia seeks and deserves."
The 11-storey club had a parking-lot on its third floor and it was here that the car, packed with 330 pounds of explosives, was left. The bomb was detonated just after 8 p.m on Friday, when the club was a hive of activity on several different floors, including a group of children about to perform a ballet.
Located in an exclusive part of the city, El Nogal was probably Colombia's most luxurious club, with some 2,000 members drawn mainly from the upper professional and business classes. Its slogan was, "The privilege of having it all", and facilities included several restaurants, games and conference rooms, gymnasia, a swimming pool and overnight facilities for guests.
The club charged approximately $15,000 for membership and was a major meeting-point for the Colombian elite as well as foreign diplomats. Its members included the Interior Minister, Mr Fernando Londono, who was not among the casualties. The bomb was seen as a very pointed and deliberately-aimed attack, targeting the wealthier classes.
The blast also recalled memories of the terror campaign launched in the early 1990s by the notorious drug baron from the city of Medellin, Pablo Escobar, to prevent his extradition to the US to face charges. Escobar was assassinated in 1993.
Elsewhere in Bogota, the Metropolitan Police found five surface-to-air missiles ready to be activated. Two people captured during the operation were also thought to have links with a bomb attack on a hotel complex in the city on December 13th last, where a suitcase bomb exploded, leaving several people injured, none fatally.
Meanwhile the search continued in a mountainous region for the country's Minister for Social Protection, Dr Juan Luis Londono, who was one of five people on board a small Piper Star aircraft which went missing on Thursday.
Dr Londono was travelling from Flandes, 150 kilometres southwest of Bogota, to Popayan, some 650 kilometres southwest of the capital. A Colombian Air Force helicopter taking part in the search was fired on, apparently by guerrillas, but the occupants were not harmed.