Bogota, Sep 9 (EFE).- At least 13 people were wounded in a bomb attack on the offices of Colombia's DAS security service in the southwestern city of Pasto, including two agents, officials said.
DAS Director Felipe Muñoz told reporters that authorities arrested three people, including a woman, suspected of carrying out Wednesday's attack.
"Immediately after the attack, DAS units captured three suspects implicated in this act, and they are being investigated ... with the support of the National Police and the CTI technical investigations unit of the Attorney General's Office," the security service said in a statement.
It added that "around 4:00 p.m. a medium-intensity bomb was detonated outside the installations of the DAS office in Nariño."
Meanwhile, Nariño Gov. Antonio Navarro, citing witnesses, told Caracol Radio and La FM radio that a minor was responsible for planting the bomb used in the attack and was one of the three detainees.
He noted that the bomb damaged a score of buildings located near that local office of the DAS, which during the former President Alvaro Uribe's administration was embroiled in a massive scandal over the illegal wiretapping of Supreme Court justices, opposition politicians and other public figures.
The governor added that two of the people injured in the blast - blamed on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, guerrilla group and the smaller ELN insurgency - remain hospitalized, although they are reportedly out of danger.
The explosion occurred in the downtown area of Pasto, the capital of Nariño province, which borders Ecuador and has been the scene of insurgent activity by the FARC and ELN over the past two weeks.
"Everything indicates, in my judgment that it was an ELN operation," Navarro said, adding that graffiti has appeared in recent days in Pasto reading "the ELN has arrived" and "the ELN is here."
Several violent actions by suspected armed groups have been carried out since President Juan Manuel Santos took office on Aug. 7, and Navarro warned of a "reactivation" of guerrilla activity in some urban and rural areas of the country.
A car bomb exploded in Bogota on Aug. 12 outside a building complex that houses leading media outlet Caracol Radio, injuring 36 people and causing extensive damage to nearby homes and commercial establishments. Authorities have not yet determined who was behind that attack.
Last week, 14 police were killed in a FARC ambush in the southern jungle province of Caqueta and three other officers perished in attacks by that guerrilla group near Colombia's borders with Ecuador and Venezuela.
Two other attacks occurred on Sunday, when the ELN killed five soldiers and wounded 17 others near the northwestern town of El Bagre, and on Tuesday, when six police were killed during a joint FARC and ELN incursion into a rural area outside the Nariño town of Samaniego.
The National Liberation Army, or ELN, and the FARC formed an alliance in the area to commit "terrorist acts" against the security forces, infrastructure and civilians, the deputy police operations commander in Nariño, Col. Ignacio Fajardo, told reporters after the ambush outside Samaniego.
The FARC and ELN operate together in some parts of Colombia, but they are engaged in fights over territory in other regions.
