Twenty Colombian soldiers have been killed in a helicopter crash in the south-west of the country.
Their Black Hawk helicopter came down near the border with Ecuador, army chief Gen Reinaldo Castellanos said in a statement.
They were working with the US-backed drug eradication and counterinsurgency programme, Plan Colombia.
The general said the helicopter had crashed after encountering bad weather, with all on board killed.
"The Black Hawk, part of Plan Colombia, supported military operations against drug traffickers and leaders of rebel groups in the southern part of the country," Gen Castellanos said.
It went down just after midnight near the town of Tumaco, 600 kilometres (370 miles) south-west of the capital, Bogota, he added.
Guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) often fire on government helicopters that fly over territory under their control but Gen Castellanos said this was unlikely to have been the cause of Thursday's crash.
The Farc, which has been fighting the Colombian government for 40 years, uses drug trafficking to finance its insurgency.
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