Bogota, Feb 8 (EFE).- Sappers deactivated on Wednesday a bomb planted by leftist rebels near the police station in the southwestern Colombian town of Miranda, the governor of Cauca province told Efe.
The bomb squad used a robot during the roughly five-hour operation, Temistocles Ortega said by telephone from Popayan, the provincial capital.
The device, which was left in a wagon, contained around 40 kilos (88 pounds) of explosives, he said.
"Luckily, we are quiet," the governor said, adding that police in Miranda had to call in sappers from Cali, capital of the neighboring province of Valle del Cauca.
The sappers were ambushed en route by robbers who wanted to steal their vehicle, leading to an exchange of gunfire that left one of the assailants dead and another wounded, Cauca's police chief, Col. Ricardo Alarcon, told reporters.
Gov. Ortega said the thwarted bombing in Miranda was part of an ongoing offensive in Cauca by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the country's largest rebel group.
"It's an action characteristic of the FARC," he said.
Nineteen people died and 76 were injured last week in a series of bombings across western and southwestern Colombia that authorities attributed to the FARC.
Also Wednesday, Colombian police said they found a cache of FARC bombs in a town 121 kilometers (75 miles) northwest of Bogota.
The 10 homemade devices, consisting of used cooking-gas cylinders packed with explosives, were discovered in the mountains outside the town of Chaguani, Cundinamarca provincial police commander Flavio Mesa said.
The bombs were designed to be detonated by remote control, he said.
