BY MARIA ENGQVIST

As in Iraq, the number of US military personnel being killed in Colombia continues to rise. The US military has lost at least eight soldiers and pilots since February, including three CIA intelligence experts who were taken prisoner after left-wing guerrillas shot down their spy plane. A total of three US airplanes have been shot down this year.

As of June, at least 17 US military and mercenary contract employees have been killed in Colombia since 1998. But nobody outside of the US government is sure of the true figure of US casualties due the secrecy surrounding Washington's increasing military involvement in Colombia.

The total number of US soldiers and mercenaries fighting in Colombia is not known either. According to US government, the number does not exceed 1000, but a spokesperson for the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Javier Cifuentes, told the Chilean e-journal El Mostrador that the real figure is more likely to be double that.

[From <http://www.anncol.com>.]

From Green Left Weekly, July 30, 2003.
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