Rebels Kill 17 Colombian Police Officers

Relatives of soldiers cry in Monteria, Colombia after an attack by hundreds of leftist rebels who bombarded the Tierradentro's police station, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2006. Authorities blamed the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known as the FARC, for killing at least 16 officers. (AP Photo/ Meridiano de Cordoba) (Meridiano De Cordoba - AP)

Rangel, the military analyst, called Wednesday's attacks one of the FARC's most significant actions in the past few years, as Uribe, backed by some $600 million in U.S. military aid annually, has put the rebel group on the defensive.

"They need to demonstrate their power, that (Uribe's) policy hasn't defeated them," he said.

The FARC, which has been fighting the government for more than four decades, reaffirmed in a statement Tuesday its desire for a prisoner swap and accused Uribe of being a U.S. puppet who is trying to pull neighboring Venezuela and Ecuador into the conflict by alleging that FARC commanders are hiding out in the neighboring nations.

Cordoba state, where Wednesday's attack occurred, is a traditional stronghold of the paramilitary militias that emerged in the 1980s, in part to protect drug traffickers from rebel kidnappers in search of ransoms.

The militias have nominally disbanded under a 2004 peace deal with the government, though Colombian prosecutors and international groups including the Organization of American States, the United Nations and Human Rights Watch Americas say the "demobilization" of some 31,000 fighters has failed to dismantle the outlaw groups and their drug-trafficking operations.

Like the FARC, the paramilitaries fund themselves in large part with proceeds from the drug trade and the area where Wednesday's fighting occurred includes thousands of acres of coca, the base ingredient for cocaine.

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Associated Press writers Toby Muse and Joshua Goodman contributed to this report.