Bogota - Rescuers scoured rebel-occupied jungles in southern Colombia for a missing US anti-drug plane yesterday as the senior US anti-drug official, Mr Barry McCaffrey, was due to arrive in the world's top cocaine-producing country.
The De Havilland RC-7, with five US army personnel and two Colombians aboard, disappeared from radar screens before dawn on Friday while flying over a region where Marxist insurgents are strong and illegal plantations of coca, the raw material for cocaine, are common.
Colombia's three rebel armies earn an estimated $600 million a year from the drug trade, according to the US.