At least 18 dead and more than 70 injured is the balance of two attacks that occurred this Thursday in Colombiaattributed by the authorities to the active dissidents of the extinct FARC guerrillas.
The first attack occurred in a rural area of Amalfi, in the department of Antioquia, where 12 police officers died in the attack on a helicopter that supported the eradication of illicit crops in the area. Initially eight injured troops were also reported.
Hours later, a bomb truck exploded in the immediate vicinity of an Aviation Military School in Cali, capital of the department of Valle del Cauca. The incident preliminarily left six people dead and 71 wounds, four of them in critical condition, according to The most recent report of the authorities.
The number of injured had previously been placed in 65.
The victims are civilians who went through the place, according to the official reports, cited by the agency EFE.
The explosion also left a great destruction in a busy avenue full of shops in which the base is located where members of the Colombian Air Force are formed.
Two attacks with at least 18 dead and 65 wounded shake Colombia.https://t.co/pm9t6ulefl
– Efe News (@Efenoticias) August 22, 2025
Drug trafficking and terrorism
The authorities described the attack as a “cowardly and criminal act” and confirmed the arrest in the place of a man who would be part of the FARC dissidents. President Gustavo Petro identified him as “aka ‘Sebastián” and pointed out that he belongs to the so -called Central General Staff (EMC).
Petro, who also attributed the attack on the police helicopter in Antioquia to the EMC, pointed out that this group belongs to what the drug trafficking board calls, a group of which several organizations dedicated to drug trafficking are supposedly part of.
For this reason, he said that he will declare that group among terrorist organizations together with the second Marquetalia, also dissent from the extinct Farc, and the Gulf clan, the country’s main criminal gang, as he refers EFE.
“I have made a decision: our investigations show that the so -called Gulf clan, the second Marquetalia and the dissidents of alias ‘Iván Bite’ (the EMC) are the drug trafficking board and must be considered persecutable terrorist organizations anywhere on the planet,” he said during an act of land delivery in the city of Valledupar.
The president recalled that terrorists are those violent acts that seek to “irradiate panic” in the civilian population, unlike the “fighting between forces that carry weapons”, such as the two attacks perpetrated this Thursday in the departments of Valle de Cauca and Antioquia.
The President @Petrogustavo He announced that he will request that the drug trafficking board bands be considered terrorists and persecuted anywhere on the planet.
In addition, the president warned that the dissidents of Iván Bite, along with the badly called ‘clan of the … pic.twitter.com/u7jwaxmqet
– Presidency Colombia (@infoPresidencia) August 22, 2025
Condemns the attacks and called to the government
Petro moved to Cali on Thursday night together with the military and police dome and, according to press versions, prepares a decree to declare the state of internal shock, an exception measure to face serious disturbances of public order that put the security of the State and citizen coexistence at risk, according to the Spanish agency.
The attacks attributed to the EMC have generated great shock inside and outside Colombia. Both politicians of different sign and international governments and organizations have condemned the facts and shown their solidarity with the relatives of the victims and the Colombian people.
At the same time, they have called the government to face the criminal organizations and armed groups responsible for these and other acts of violence in the country.
“This attack constitutes a direct affront to human life and dignity and a clear violation of international humanitarian law, which absolutely prohibits attacks against civilians,” said the Ombudsman, Iris Marín; Meanwhile, the governor of Valle del Cauca, Dilian Francisca Toro, called to face terrorism “with more strength and more watertight.”
For its part, the Office of the High Commissioner the UN for Human Rights in Colombia also condemned the “indiscriminate attack” in Cali and called the State “to attend to the victims and go ahead the relevant investigations to clarify the facts and guarantee justice.”
