COLOMBIA: Helicopters dropped elite Colombian troops into a former rebel enclave yesterday under sporadic machine-gun fire. However, there was no showdown on the ground as all but a few of the left-wing guerrillas had already gone.
The arrival of Black Hawk helicopters in the steamy southern savanna - deserted but for grazing cows - came a day after warplanes bombed rebel positions to close down the safe haven ceded to FARC in 1998 to encourage peace talks.
Some 900 troops from the rapid deployment force swarmed off the helicopters into a former military base just outside the town of San Vicente, where an earlier contingent of parachutists had landed.
A furious President Andres Pastrana said on Wednesday he would force the "terrorist" Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia out of the Switzerland-sized chunk of ranch land and jungle. His action in ending talks with the rebels was supported yesterday by the European Union.
The rebel group, known by the Spanish initials FARC, had hours earlier hijacked a commercial plane and kidnapped a senator in an audacious attack that brought an abrupt end to three years of fruitless negotiations to resolve Colombia's bitter 38-year-old war.
Armed with assault rifles, grenade launchers and machine guns, the first US-trained troops landing in the enclave - where rebel leaders had lorded it over locals in permanent camps with satellite TV, Internet and flashy four-wheel drives - were "eager to fight", said one soldier, Capt Carmona Marin.
The armed forces leader, Gen Fernando Tapias, said three helicopters were hit by anti-aircraft machine-gun fire and one pilot and two other crew members were injured.
He could not confirm media reports that up to seven civilians were killed and 15 injured in bombing raids against rebel positions on Thursday.
The first contingent of troops landed at 1 a.m. and two others followed, the army said.
"Reinforcements are going to be arriving all day," an army spokesman said. A mine-sweeping team was also en route, he added.
But the guerrillas, as expected, made no attempt to resist the heavily armed troops and melted into the surrounding jungle long before they arrived.
The armed forces, which long had wanted to push into the FARC zone, dubbed their invasion "Operation Thanatos" after the ancient Greek mythical personification of death.
Although the collapse of peace talks to resolve the war pitting left-wing rebels against the armed forces (aided by far-right paramilitary outlaws) took Colombia back to where it was three years ago, Mr Pastrana said the country's military was now much sharper and more sophisticated.
The United States, which says it "understands and supports" Mr Pastrana's decision to send the army in, has poured more than $1billion in mostly military aid into his Plan Colombia, which aims to smash the drugs trade in the world's cocaine capital.
Peace talks had done little to stem bloodshed and most of the FARC's 17,000 fighters had kept up their guerrilla struggle outside their territory - which Mr Pastrana accused them of using to hide kidnap victims, run a cocaine business and train.
Some 12,000 Colombian troops massed around the 16,000 square-mile zone that had been off-limits to police, military and state institutions for three years.
The rebels are now expected to fan out and escalate their guerrilla war before the May presidential elections.