Colombia reports that the Army's new anti-narcotic battalion has completed training and is ready for operations. The police will receive ten UH-1Hs donated by the US this year and 15 next year; and have received three UH-60s so far and expect three more next year.--Stephen V Cole

October 23; About a hundred right wing militiamen of the AUC attacked a village a hundred kilometers south of the capital, burning twenty houses and killing four people. The AUC has been fighting the FARC and ELN for years. A newspaper editor was killed in Sincelejo. In the past eleven years, at least 105 journalists have been killed, usually for political reasons.