Pubdate: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 Source: Miami Herald (FL) Copyright: 2000 The Miami Herald Contact: One Herald Plaza, Miami FL 33132-1693 Fax: (305) 376-8950 Website: http://www.herald.com/ Forum: http://krwebx.infi.net/webxmulti/cgi-bin/WebX?mherald Author: Carol Rosenberg U.S. BANS TROOPS FROM REBEL ZONES Pentagon officials, seeking to limit U.S. involvement in Colombia's conflict, already have banned U.S. troops from guerrilla territory. By order of Secretary of Defense William Cohen, the 100 or so Special Forces trainers now in the country on any given day are prohibited from going on missions with Colombia's anti-drug battalions. Instead they remain primarily in three places: Tolemeida, the Colombians' major special forces training base near Bogota, and at two bases in the coca growing area, Tres Esquinas and Larandia, 50 miles from the zone controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC. There they live and work behind "barbed wire, machine guns, barking dogs," a senior Pentagon official said. The trainers arrive on three-month temporary rotations. They are flown to the bases by U.S. military aircraft, wear U.S. uniforms and teach basic light infantry courses -- map reading, land navigation skills, small unit tactics -- until U.S. forces fly them back to the United States. The Pentagon official said the military is mindful of the possibility the trainers will come under attack. "Everyone in Colombia is vulnerable to attack by the FARC," he said. ". . . Colombia is a very dangerous, violent place. It's very bad." But U.S. intelligence estimates have found no evidence that the FARC want to engage the Americans directly. And intelligence officials believe the guerrillas are unlikely to target the huge bases where the Americans are housed, noting they have favored hit-and-run assaults on small five-to 10-member police outposts on the fringes of so-called FARC-landia, the rebel-controlled zone. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek