Two homemade mortars hit the presidential palace, while another fell on a middle-class neighborhood. A fourth mortar hit a shantytown, Cartucho, a few streets from the Congress. Fourteen people were killed in Cartucho. The other five were killed in the middle-class neighborhood.
After the attack police found 16 remote-controlled devices and more than 100 other mortars ready to be launched in safe houses just over a mile from the seat of government. Last week's attack in Bogotá was the first time that mortars, lined up in a row to be fired simultaneously, had been used in an urban environment in Colombia; this clearly emulates IRA methods.
While FARC has its roots in Marxist ideology, almost 40 years of civil war have turned Colombia's guerrillas into a force for anarchy driven by their need to protect the production of 700 tons of cocaine each year, which they oversee. The guerrillas have traditionally operated in the jungles and countryside where their drugs production flourishes.
Three alleged IRA members are in jail in Bogotá awaiting trial on charges of training the FARC in explosives and urban terrorism. Colombian police arrested James Monaghan, Martin McAuley and Niall Connolly last August.
Peter Robinson, the deputy leader of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, said that he was convinced that the IRA were behind the latest attacks. "This is unquestionably the product of IRA activity and training in Colombia and further evidence of the IRA's links with those who peddle death and destruction round the world. "This is not the first time that we have had a very clear indication of the kind of exploits the IRA are involved in while sitting in government in Northern Ireland."
"There is no doubt that behind this attack is the training of the IRA," said Colombian general Reynaldo Castellanos. The IRA, for its part, has repeatedly denied any "military" involvement in Colombia.
But it is not just the Colombians who see the tactics and training of the IRA behind the FARC's urban operations. When the audacious operation was described to a former British bomb disposal officer who specialized in IRA mortars, he saw "all the fingerprints of the Provisional IRA" in Wednesday's attack on the presidential palace.
"It seems to be a classic IRA operation," said the former British army major. "The first set of rounds was designed to distract the security forces, focus their attention far from the principal target."
The main target was the presidential palace and the use of the remote-control detonation had never been seen in Colombia, but was commonplace in Northern Ireland and in IRA attacks on the British mainland. "The FARC operation reminds me of the IRA mortaring of Downing Street in 1991," said the British bomb disposal expert. "Whilst the detonation was different, the idea was very much the same."
A recent United States Senate report claimed that an "intense and indiscriminate" urban bombing campaign in Colombia appeared to be the direct result of the IRA's training of FARC rebels. The report linked the IRA to the killing of 117 civilians - one third of them children - in a church in Colombia last May when a mortar bomb landed on its roof.
The increasing use of mortars and car bombs, in addition to the apparently indiscriminate killing of civilians in urban environments, carry clear associations with the IRA for Colombia's police investigators.
It doesn’t stop there; the Basque separatist terrorist group ETA exploded a bomb yesterday at a Burger King restaurant in a tourist area of southern Spain.
No one was injured in the explosion because the police had cleared the premises in Torrevieja after receiving a warning.
The blast came days after the group killed a six-year-old girl in a car bomb attack in the nearby town of Santo Palo.
Javier Arenas, the public administration minister, said ETA was "seizing the opportunity to extend the terror wherever it can", and seemed bent on creating a general climate of fear to try to wreck the Spanish economy. This is the same technique used by the IRA in Great Britain and there are confirmed links with ETA and the IRA.
The Spanish government is now pursuing an all-out campaign to smash the movement. It has begun legal proceedings to ban ETA's political wing, Batasuna, for allegedly supporting terrorism.
ETA has killed 47 people since ending a ceasefire three years ago. The government has vowed that the terrorists will face a fearsome "democratic response".
In Navarre the regional government is attempting to ban the flying of the Basque flag. The province is the most sensitive of the Basque homelands. Nationalists claim it as part of a greater Basque state but the majority of its inhabitants vote for parties loyal to the central government.
This is the same IRA that was invited into our White House by Bill Clinton; Gerry Adams had been allowed for decades to raise money in the New York, Boston and Chicago bars and restaurants. It all stopped under George W. Bush, the New IRA and its associates are labeled terrorists and are banned from this nation, as they should have been decades ago.
A terrorist is a terrorist; no matter what nationality or the color of their skin. Profiling has to continue and we now have to be more vigilant than ever in our concerns. It could be your neighbor, family member or even worse a direct member of your family.
The trust factor just got worse and in other areas it has been announced that airline staff, especially pilots and cabin crew are being targeted. Their uniforms are being stolen and could be used by terrorists to gain access to airports without the same challenges that are placed upon the general public.
This is a global problem and must be recognized as such. The silence is deafening, although the terror attacks continue worldwide, no attack has occurred on the shores of America. This doesn’t mean we need to let down our guard. Each day that goes by brings the chance of a bombing or shooting grows closer and closer. Security must be examined more closely and logic and experience will accomplish the guard that is required for these terrorist thugs.
Knowing that these infiltrators have to live and stay somewhere, it is up to all of us to be cognizant of our surroundings, hotel guest, neighbors and tradesmen, know they are around you.
SSAF International Ltd. has been informing and protecting for over thirty years and does not take these new facts lightly, in fact we have been telling you about them since and before the attacks of 9/11.
We don’t want to sound like an old broken record or scratched CD, the risk is real and protection cannot just happen overnight. You know your responsibility under your Duty of Care.
Don’t wait, because it will be too late!