MARCHING TO WAR

Venezuela and Ecuador sought Monday to make Colombia pay a high price for killing a leftist rebel leader in the Ecuadorean jungle — expelling its diplomats, ordering troops to the border and cracking down on trade across the border.

But Colombia struck back, revealing incriminating documents seized from the rebel camp that suggest its neighbors have been supporting the leftist insurgency.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa piled on the pressure saying Colombia's killing of the rebel leader Raul Reyes Saturday had scuttled talks between his government and the guerrillas to free 12 rebel-held hostages, including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. defense contractors.

"I'm sorry to tell you that the conversation were pretty advanced to free 12 hostages, including Ingrid Betancourt, in Ecuador," said Correa in a televised address. "All of this was frustrated by the war-mongering, authoritarian hands" of the Colombian government.

Colombia's national police chief stood by its attack that killed Reyes, and said that documents recovered from his laptop showed Venezuela's leftist government recently paid $300 million to the rebels, among other financial and political ties that date back years.

Colombia says some documents suggest the rebels have bought and sold uranium.

"When they mention negotiations for 50 kilos of uranium this means that the FARC are taking big steps in the world of terrorism to become a global aggressor. We're not talking of domestic guerrilla but transnational terrorism," Gen. Oscar Naranjo said at an explosive news conference.

Naranjo didn't give any details on when, where or from whom the uranium was allegedly bought. He provided no proof of the payment and wouldn't release copies of the documents.

Both Venezuela and Ecuador dismissed his allegations as lies. They expelled Colombia's top diplomats and recalled their own.

Colombia said military commandos, tracking Reyes through an informant, were fired upon from Ecuadorean territory. But Correa said Colombia deliberately carried out the strike beyond its borders, and that the rebels were "bombed and massacred as they slept, using precision technology."

Both Venezuela and Ecuador also began reinforcing their borders, mobilizing troops and tanks as Chavez warned that another Colombian attack could spark a wider South American war.




Venezuelan National Guard troops and customs authorities suspended new imports and exports at the busiest border crossings. All vehicles with Colombian license plates were being turned away from a key border crossing.



Maintaining trade with Colombia, essential to Venezuela's economy, is one of many factors weighing against outright war. But the bellicose rhetoric has worried Latin American leaders. The presidents of Chile, Mexico and Brazil offered to mediate, and an emergency session of the Organization of American States was scheduled for Tuesday in Washington.


State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the United States supports Colombia's right to defend itself against the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and called for dialogue.



Colombian officials have long complained that rebels take refuge in Ecuador and Venezuela.

The rebels, who have been fighting for more than four decades for a more equitable distribution of wealth in Colombia, fund themselves largely through the cocaine trade, while holding hundreds of kidnapped hostages for ransom and political ends. The drug trafficking and kidnappings haven't helped their reputation, which is why both Correa and Chavez have denied supporting them.

Killed in the bombing were Reyes, the FARC's top spokesman, and 20 other guerrillas. Ecuador recovered 19 bodies and three wounded female rebels, including a Mexican philosophy student. By then, Colombian soldiers had already carried out the cadavers of Reyes and another rebel, along with three laptops containing the sensitive documents.

Indignant, Chavez said "they wanted to show off the trophy" and called it "cowardly murder, all of it coldly calculated."

"This could be the start of a war in South America," Chavez said.

But Naranjo said laptops show Venezuela's growing responsibility for the conflict.

The $300 million payment was mentioned in a Feb. 14 message in Reyes laptop, along with documents suggesting rebels discussed a possible arms transfer from Venezuela, and revealing close ties between Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda, the top FARC leader, and Venezuela's government.

He quoted one message from Marulanda to Chavez saying "We will always be ready, in the case of gringo aggression, to provide our modest knowledge in defense of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela."

"This implies more than cozying up, but an armed alliance between the FARC and the Venezuelan government," Naranjo said.

Naranjo said other documents show deepening ties between the rebels and Correa. Ecuador acknowledged that its internal security minister, Gustavo Larrea, met with a FARC emissary but said the intent was strictly humanitarian — to seek the release of hostages held by the rebel group.

Still another document in Reyes' laptop suggests the rebels sent Chavez money when he was jailed in 1992 for leading a coup attempt, Naranjo said. At the time, he was plotting the comeback that eventually led to his election as president in 1998.

"A note recovered from Raul Reyes speaks of how grateful Chavez was for the 100 million pesos (about US$150,000 at the time) ... delivered to Chavez when he was in prison," Naranjo said, without giving any more details.

Venezuelan late Monday countered by displaying its own seized laptop in Caracas, saying it holds incriminating information tying Naranjo to drug traffickers

Venezuelan Justice Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin said this laptop, belonging to Colombian drug lord Wilber Varela, who was found slain in Venezuela in January, held "important information and notes from the drug traffickers which involve General Oscar Naranjo in drug trafficking."

Rodriguez, who is Chavez's top law enforcement official, said both Naranjo and his brother, who is imprisoned in Germany on drug charges, have links to traffickers.

WAR, LATIN AMERICA STYLE

The leftist presidents of Venezuela and Ecuador recalled ambassadors from Bogota and began moving tanks and troops to reinforce their borders with Colombia.

Relations have clearly hit a new low between President Alvaro Uribe and his leftist neighbors. President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela warned that Colombia and its U.S. military backers may trigger "war in South America" with raids like the one that killed a key leftist rebel commander across the border in Ecuador.


Ecuador's President Rafael Correa called Colombia's "a foul and lying government that doesn't want peace."

But there is little appetite for armed conflict in the region despite Chavez's recent purchases of $3 billion in Russian arms, including 53 military helicopters, 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles and 24 SU-30 Sukhoi fighter jets.


Too many people depend on cross-border trade worth $5 billion a year, most of it Colombian exports sorely needed by Venezuelans already suffering milk and meat shortages. Ecuador depends on some $1.8 billion in trade with Colombia.

And militarily, Colombia has become a formidable foe, thanks in large part to $5 billion in aid from Washington since 2000, are U.S. military advisers are throughout Colombia's military.

Chavez's critics say his saber-rattling is intended to deflect attention from mounting domestic woes.

Chavez's cause also wasn't helped by Colombia's discovery of what it described as damaging documents in three laptop computers seized at the jungle camp of Raul Reyes, the slain spokesman for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

According to Colombia's national police director, Gen. Oscar Naranjo, the seized files are "tremendously revelatory" and are being examined with the help of U.S. experts.

One document suggests Venezuela gave the rebels $300 million, while another suggests the rebels were shopping for 50 kilos of uranium.

The documents also show President Rafael Correa has sought to deepen ties with the rebels.

Correa called the Colombian charges an insult and broke diplomatic relations with Bogota.

Venezuela's embassy and consulate in Bogota were closed, Latin American presidents pleaded for reconciliation and offered to mediate, and an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States was called for Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

Ecuador did acknowledge that its internal security minister met with Reyes to discuss helping free hostages.

There were some signs of military mobilization on Monday.

Ecuadorean soldiers were helicoptered to their jungle frontier, and Venezuelan troops turned away private vehicles with Colombian plates at least one border crossing. Some Venezuelan tanks were trucked to the border.

But there was relative calm on the ground. Colombia's defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos, said no extraordinary military moves were planned, and vowed not to be drawn into a conflict with Chavez.

South America hasn't seen a shooting war since Peru and Ecuador fought for a month in 1995 for long-disputed border valley, leaving about 80 soldiers dead.

Colombia's borders with Ecuador and Venezuela are rugged and porous, crossed with ease by FARC guerrillas, who have been at war with successive Bogota governments for more than four decades.

Colombia has long complained that Ecuador and Venezuela have done little to confront the issue. According to rebel deserters recently interviewed by the AP, Venezuela allows FARC fighters to get rest, medical attention and process cocaine for unhindered export to the United States and Europe.

The rebel presence has made many Venezuelans who live near the border uneasy.

The Colombian commando raid on Saturday that killed Raul Reyes infuriated Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and his ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Chavez has called Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe a "mob boss" and a "liar."

The Venezuelan foreign ministry later announced its decision in a statement, saying it was acting "in defense of the sovereignty of the fatherland and the dignity of the Venezuelan people."

It said the government "has decided to order the immediate expulsion... of the ambassador of the Republic of Colombia in Venezuela, and the diplomatic personnel of the Colombian Embassy in Caracas."

Fidel Castro, long leader of Cuba, blamed the U.S. for bringing Colombia to the brink of a military clash with neighboring Venezuela and Ecuador, writing on Monday that "genocidal plans of the Yankee empire" created tensions between the South American nations. "We can plainly hear the trumpets of war to the south of our continent as a consequence of genocidal plans of the Yankee empire," Castro wrote in an essay published in the Communist Party daily Granma.

HOLY BLOOD

Palestinian militants fire rockets nearly daily at Sderot and other Israeli border towns near Gaza. But by reaching Ashkelon, a city of 120,000 people about 11 miles north of Gaza, Hamas raised the stakes dangerously. It is one of the largest cities in southern Israel, home to Mediterranean beaches, a college and strategic installations like an electric plant and a water purification plant.

Since the first rocket hit Ashkelon on Wednesday in retaliation for an Israeli strike that killed five militants, Israel's military has killed more than 100 Palestinians. Three Israelis have also died in the violence.

Six people were wounded in Ashkelon on Saturday after one rocket landed next to City Hall and another in the marina area. Another rocket struck Ashkelon on Sunday, slightly wounding one person, medics said.

The rockets have killed 13 people, wounded dozens more, caused millions of dollars in damage and made daily life unbearable.




Ashkelon residents took to the street on Saturday night urging government action against the Gaza militants. On Sunday, the city was relatively calm, maintenance crews collecting debris and paving over craters left by rockets hitting parking lots.

The army over the weekend installed its "Code Red" siren system in Ashkelon to alert of any future incoming rockets and on Sunday, Israeli emergency services began providing first-aid courses to instruct residents how to act in an attack.

The government, however, is determined not to let militants scare people away from Ashkelon.

Israeli officials assume that new and improved rockets, along with Iranian-trained rocket-launchers, were smuggled into Gaza when its border with Egypt was breached in January, bringing Ashkelon into its range.


An Israeli official who sparked an uproar by using the word for "holocaust" to describe what Israel might do to the Gaza Strip said his comment had been manipulated by the media but acknowledged he could have chosen another term.

In a radio interview Friday discussing Palestinian rocket fire at Israel and Israel's military response, Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said, "As the rocket fire grows, and the range increases ... they are bringing upon themselves a greater 'shoah' because we will use all our strength in every way we deem appropriate."

The Hebrew word "shoah" refers to the Nazi Holocaust, but also means "disaster," and a spokesman for Vilnai clarified he meant the latter.

Nonetheless, many international media translated it as "holocaust" and the statement was taken by many in the Arab world to mean that Israel was threatening the Palestinians with genocide



On Saturday, Palestinian leaders from both Hamas and Fatah called Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip a "holocaust" and "genocide."

Egypt opened its only crossing with the Gaza Strip to receive wounded Palestinians on Sunday, a day after 54 people were killed in Israel's latest offensive against militants firing rockets from the territory.

Egypt sent 27 ambulances to the Rafah crossing to transfer 150-200 wounded Palestinians to hospitals in the Sinai Peninsula and other cities on the mainland.

Sunday was the first time Egypt has agreed to open the crossing since the militant Palestinian group Hamas blew up part of the border wall on Jan. 23, allowing hundreds of thousands of Gazans to flood across the frontier unchecked for 12 days.

The U.N. Security Council issued a media statement early Sunday condemning the escalation of fighting in southern Israel and Gaza and urging Israelis and Palestinians "to immediately cease all acts of violence."

The statement, though not a formal resolution, also stressed that the violence "must not be allowed to deter the political process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority aimed at establishing two states — Israel and Palestine — living side by side in peace and security."

Council experts will meet Monday to consider a draft resolution circulated Saturday night by Libya on behalf of the Palestinians and Arab nations. It would strongly condemn the killing of innocent civilians, including children.

Israel's public security minister, Avi Dichter, visited Sderot on Thursday, but was forced to cut a news conference when an air-raid siren went off and his guards rushed him to a concrete shelter. Before Dichter arrived in the town, two people were hurt by rocket fire, including one of his bodyguards.

Dichter told reporters he had no quick solution for the rocket problem, but rejected suggestions of opening a dialogue with Hamas. Israel considers Hamas a terrorist group.

The latest spike in violence began Wednesday, when five Iranian-trained Hamas militants, including two rocket masterminds, were killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Gaza. In retaliation, Hamas fired dozens of Qassam rockets as well as longer-range Iranian-made Grad rockets.

Nabil Abu Rudainah, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said in a statement that Israel's military actions "meant only one thing: the Israeli government ... aims to destroy the peace process".

Olmert acknowledged the threat that "the continuous shooting of Qassam rockets against uninvolved, innocent civilians" pose a threat to stability, but vowed to hold his regular meetings with Abbas.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki, said: "These stupid missiles being launched - firecrackers, but at the end they have killed Israeli civilians - we condemn this, clearly, openly, straightforwardly.

"But at the same time, we condemn all the Israeli incursions into Gaza, killing Palestinian civilians, destroying their houses, preventing them from having a normal life," he said.

Hamas officials struck a defiant tone yesterday. "We will never have equipment comparable to our enemy, but we are working all the time to have enough to make any aggression a regrettable adventure for the enemy," said Abu Obeida, a spokesman for the Hamas military wing, Izz al-Din al-Qassam.

In Tokyo, visiting Olmert said that Israel will go after the militants. We will reach out for the terrorists and we will attack and we will try to stop them, he said.

Rice, who briefly met with Olmert in Tokyo, said Hamas rocket attacks need to stop, but also expressed concern for the humanitarian situation in Gaza and urged calm on all sides.

TURKEY OUT

Turkey's top general said the country's troop withdrawal from Iraq had nothing to do with U.S. calls to keep the cross-border campaign against Kurdish rebels as short as possible, a newspaper reported Saturday.

Gen. Yasar Buyukanit said withdrawal had already begun when U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked on Thursday for a quick end to Turkey's military operation in northern Iraq against separatist rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, Milliyet newspaper reported.

Announcing the pullout then would have been a security risk, the general was quoted as saying.

Turkey withdrew is troops from northern Iraq on Friday, eight days after the military began a ground incursion to hit the rebels, who use their bases in northern Iraq as a launch pad for hit-and-run attacks on Turkish targets.

"This decision (for withdrawal) was made due to military reasons only," Buyukanit was quoted as saying.

President George W. Bush had also asked Turks to "move, move quickly, achieve their objective and get out."

Turkey declined on Thursday to set a timetable for withdrawal, saying troops would pull out once the job was done.

Buyukanit said timing of the pullout was decided before Gates' arrival in the Turkish capital of Ankara on Wednesday, Milliyet reported.

He said troops had already started returning when Gates was in Ankara, the newspaper said.

"But announcing a withdrawal then would be a murder. Announcing withdrawal is equivalent of telling those terrorists there to set up their traps and ambushes," Milliyet quoted him as saying

Turkey, a NATO-member, has long sought cooperation from Washington in its fight against the PKK, which it considers a terrorist organization. The U.S. and the European Union also consider the group as terrorist.

Bush and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met in November, when Washington agreed to share intelligence about the rebel group.

Turkey has launched a series of air assaults against PKK targets in Iraq since December, the first such operations since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The ground operation, launched on Feb. 21, was also the first of its kind that Turkey has conducted in almost a decade.

The PKK has waged a guerrilla war against Turkey since 1984, seeking self-rule for Kurds in southeastern Turkey. The fighting has claimed up to 40,000 lives.

Turkey's military said Friday it has ended a ground offensive against Kurdish rebels in Iraq, but said that foreign influence did not play a role in its decision.

At least 200 trucks carrying Turkish troops were seen leaving the Iraqi border area and heading into Turkey's interior.

The move came a day after Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Turkish leaders during a visit in Ankara that they should end the offensive as soon as possible. In Washington, President Bush made a similar point Thursday, saying Turkey needed to move quickly and get out.

"Both the start and end dates of the operation were decided by us solely based on military reasoning and necessities," the military said in a statement. "Any influence, either foreign on domestic, on this decision by the Turkish Armed Forces is out of question."

Turkey launched the incursion into northern Iraq more than a week ago against the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, a group fighting for the autonomy of predominantly Kurdish southeastern Turkey. The rebels have carried out attacks in Turkey from bases in Kurdish Iraq.

It was the first major, confirmed incursion in Iraq by Turkey in almost a decade.

In Washington, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Friday that "it was a targeted and relatively short operation."

"But I would certainly expect that in the future, that unless the PKK gives up terrorism, that we're going to have to continue to work with the Turks and the Iraqis to go after them," Johndroe said.

Iraqi authorities have said they do not support the PKK but objected to Turkey's military action. On Friday, Iraq's foreign minister said he welcomed the troops' departure.

"The timing is good. I think the military carried out its promises" to remove Turkish troops after finishing the operations, Hoshyar Zebari told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Zebari credited the U.S. with playing an "instrumental" role in pressing Turkey to leave.

"The U.S. played a very important role on all fronts to remind Turkey of the seriousness of the situation," Zebari said.

The Turkish military said in a statement that the operation targeted some 300 rebels in Iraq's Zap region, and 240 of them were killed. Turkish losses stood at 27.

"Without a doubt, it is impossible to render the entire terrorist organization ineffective with an operation in only one region. However, it is shown to the group that Iraq's north is not a safe area for terrorists," the military said.

The military said it would not allow northern Iraq to be used as a springboard for attacks against Turkey.

"Terrorist activities in Iraq's north will be observed in the future and no threat against Turkey from this region will be allowed," the military said.

At least 200 military and civilian trucks ferried Turkish troops from the border with Iraq and through the Turkish town of Cukurca on Friday, bound for barracks in Turkey's interior. Some soldiers in the trucks gave thumbs-up signs as they returned. Some had camouflage paint on their faces and held machine guns.

PKK spokesman Ahmad Danas confirmed Turkey's withdrawal, and speculated that American pressure had forced Turkey to pull out.