CHIQUINQUIRA, COLOMBIA – It is one thing to demand ransom for someone’s release; it is quite another to put a bomb around someone’s neck.
Have you seen the film What About Bob? You haven’t? Are you a Bill Murray fan? If so this has to rank as one of his best (that and The Man Who Knew Too Little – a spy spoof).
There is a scene near the end that bears on the featured attack for today. Psychiatrist Leo Marvin (played by Richard Dreyfus) has been treating ‘Bob’ (Bill Murray’s character) for years and when Bob hounds Leo at his cottage the latter is so fed up that he places an explosive vest on him to rid himself once and for all of this troublesome patient. Bob sees this as a metaphor for his life and ends up taking it off in Leo’s house, where it explodes and destroys the entire structure.
In today’s attack something similar was used, but with lethal effect.
On this day in 2000
The Frente Armada Revolucionaria de Colombia (the FARC) placed an explosive collar around the neck of a woman from whom they demanded money. When a technician tried to remove it his arm was blown off and he later died in hospital: the woman also died.
It’s the first time in the history of the war that we’ve seen such a macabre act.
General Fabio Bedoya of the Colombian army’s 1st Brigade
FARC often financed itself in part through kidnappings and armed extortion, and sometimes killed those who refuse to pay. Family members of Mrs. Elvia Cortez, aged 53 (the victim) were present when the collar exploded, and were seen afterwards in tears. She was the mother of four children. Another of the FARC’s thousands of casualties.
Read More Today in Terrorism
May 31, 1906: Spanish anarchist bombs royal wedding
On May 31, 1906 a Spanish anarchist threw a bomb hoping to hit King Alfonso XIII, killing 24 and wounding more than 100.
May 30, 2009: Anti-government group bombs TV station in Ecuador
On May 30, 2009 two pamphlet-bombs exploded outside an Ecuadorian TV station and ministry: no victims or significant damage ensued.
May 29, 2016: ISIS uses chlorine gas in terrorist attack
On May 29, 2016 35 civilians were wounded in an ISIS attack using rockets containing chlorine gas in Iraq’s Nineveh Province.
