Colombian paramilitary combat leaves 80 dead

BOGOTA, Colombia - About 80 right-wing paramilitaries and Marxist rebels died in battle over lucrative cocaine-producing land in western Colombia, a local official said, a day after the morning to night gunfight.

"There was combat all day, from five in the morning to nine at night. The confrontations left 40 paramilitaries dead and an equal number of guerrillas," Federico Cuellar, a local official in the jungle town of San Jose del Palmar in Choco province said.

He said he got the information from fighters evacuated to the town after the battle in a nearby area that is home to large plantations of coca plants used in the production of cocaine.

Police and army officials confirmed there was fighting in the area but did not provide casualty numbers.

Both the rebels, who say they are fighting a 41-year war for socialist revolution despite very little public support, and the paramilitaries, guilty of some of the worst human rights atrocities of the conflict, use the Andean country's cocaine business to fund their activities.

- REUTERS