Bogota bomb fuels urban war fears

The bomb may have been retaliation for a crackdown

Colombian police have raided shanty towns in the capital, Bogota, after a car bomb attack outside police headquarters killed two people and injured almost 40.

These are things that are to be expected but we must endure them - there is no turning back

Vice-President Francisco Santos

Police said the bomb, which exploded in a car park, was the work of the country's leftist rebels, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The bombing appears to confirm a shift in the conflict from the countryside to urban centres, the BBC's Jeremy McDermott reports from Bogota.

Thousands of police have raided urban slums

Previously the city was spared the worst of the four-decade war between government forces, the FARC and right-wing paramilitaries.

Police said the car was packed with 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of explosives and driven into the car park adjacent to police headquarters.

The bomb killed an attendant who was washing the car at the time and a police officer in his late teens.

Slums targeted

The subsequent police raids echoed a campaign in the country's second biggest city Medellin last week, when 1,000 troops invaded Comuna 13, a guerrilla-dominated slum.

There they were met by heavily armed rebel militias and street-fighting raged for two days until 3,000 troops managed to take control of the district. At least 12 people were killed in the fighting.

Alvaro Uribe's father was killed by the rebels

The dense security blanket still smothers Comuna 13 and in Cali, the third largest city, police carried out similar raids on poor neighbourhoods to try to assert their control.

The Defence Minister, Marta Lucia Ramirez, said the car bombs were "obviously a response to the actions by government forces to protect the citizens".

Vice-President Francisco Santos said the government would not be deterred from its hard-line campaign to suffocate the insurgents.

"These are things that are to be expected but we must endure them," he said. "There is no turning back."

Since taking office in August, President Alvaro Uribe has introduced a series of tough new measures to pursue the rebels, some of which entail the suspension of basic civil liberties.

They include the establishment of a civilian spy network and paid informers, arms for peasants in vulnerable parts of the country, and the detention of suspects without warrants and imposition of curfews in certain zones.