At least 7 dead after wave of explosions hit southwest Colombia, authorities say
Explosions occurred in the city of Cali and several towns in the departments of Cauca and Valle del Cauca, the Colombian National Army reported on X. It added that the country's police were a 'direct target' of the attacks.
Colombia's national police reported more than 20 'terrorist attacks' throughout the day, including car bombings, firearm attacks, and the launching of explosive devices.
At least two officers were among those killed, and a mix of civilians, military personnel, and police were among the 28 people injured, police added.
The army said it has intelligence linking the attacks to the leader of the guerrilla group Estado Mayor Central, one of the factions of fighters that remain after the country's FARC rebels signed a peace agreement with the Colombian government. It did not offer evidence for the claim.
Estado Mayor Central has not claimed responsibility for the attack. In a Tuesday statement, the group accused Colombia's government of reneging on the peace process and issued tips to civilians on avoiding the crossfire. CNN is reaching out to the group for comment.
In Cali, Colombia's third-largest city, the city's mayor Alejandro Eder said three explosive devices were detonated on Tuesday.
Eder said the explosions were recorded in Cali's Los Mangos area, near the Meléndez police station, and another at the Manuela Beltrán Immediate Attention Center (CAI), a police substation. The situation is now 'under control,' Eder said later on Tuesday, adding that he ordered security forces to deploy throughout the city
'They want us to go back to 1989, we won't allow for it!' Eder said, referencing a period of intense violence in Colombia, including the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán.
Videos of the aftermath in Cali, posted to social media and geolocated by CNN, show exploded vehicles still burning and scorched debris scattered across the street. Crowds of dazed pedestrians are seen gathering around the site as emergency sirens sound in the distance.
The defense ministry said military forces prevented six attacks and captured two people preparing explosives.
Sergio Guzman, the founder of Colombia Risk Analysis, a Bogota-based risk consultancy, told CNN the attacks demonstrate how criminal armed organizations are 'trying to pressure the government further to make more agreements or concessions to them.'
Dilian Francisca Toro, the governor of Valle del Cauca, where Cali is located, urged Colombian President Gustavo Petro to convene the country's Security Council to respond to the 'current escalation of terrorism.'
The attacks in downtown Cali were particularly significant, as they impacted the largest urban area in the south of the country and a major tourist and economic hub, International Crisis Group Senior Analyst Elizabeth Dickinson told CNN.
'It indicates also that these organizations have an interest not only in being present in rural areas where they have access to illicit economies, but also to more broadly destabilizing the country and affecting urban security,' Dickinson said.
In October, thousands of delegates from around the world gathered in Cali for a UN-sponsored conference on biodiversity, as Petro's government sought to present Colombia as a vibrant, biodiverse nation that had left the worst chapters of its violent political history behind.
Colombian Vice-President Francia Márquez Mina condemned the violence.
'I categorically reject the wave of violence that has erupted in Cali and northern Cauca at this time. It's unacceptable to instill fear in the people and then offer security,' she said on X, 'As a National Government, we must redouble our efforts to restore public order and guarantee the security and peace of mind of the Colombian people.'
The blasts come days after prominent Colombian politician and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot at a campaign event. Uribe remains in critical condition as of Tuesday morning. A 15-year-old has been charged with attempted murder over the shooting.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro says he has asked US authorities to help investigate the shooting, saying the suspect's weapon was purchased in Arizona.
CNN's Avery Schmitz contributed to this report.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Egypt Independent
11 hours ago
- Egypt Independent
Putin's wins leave Trump with hard choices
Russian President Vladimir Putin got everything he could have hoped for in Alaska. President Donald Trump got very little — judging by his own pre-summit metrics. The question now is whether Trump secured any moderate gains or planted seeds for Ukraine's future security if there's an eventual peace deal with Russia that were not immediately obvious after Friday's summit. And he's left with some searing strategic questions. Despite Trump's claim to have made 'a lot of progress' and that the summit was a '10 out of 10,' all signs point to a huge win for the Russian autocrat. Trump's lavish stage production of Putin's arrival Friday, with near-simultaneous exits from presidential jets and red-carpet strolls, provided some image rehabilitation for a leader who is a pariah in the rest of the West and who is accused of war crimes in Ukraine. And by the end of their meeting, Trump had offered a massive concession to his visitor by adopting the Russian position that peace moves should concentrate on a final peace deal — which will likely take months or years to negotiate — rather than a ceasefire to halt the Russian offensive now. As CNN's Nick Paton Walsh pointed out, that just gives Putin more time to grind down Ukraine. Most importantly, Trump has, at least for now, backed away from threats to impose tough new sanctions on Russia and expand secondary sanctions on the nations that buy its oil and therefore bankroll its war. He'd threatened such measures by a deadline that expired last week out of frustration with Putin's intransigence and a growing belief the Russian leader was 'tapping' him along. This leverage may have brought Putin to Alaska. But Trump seems to have relaxed it for little in return. 'Because of what happened today, I think I don't have to think about that now,' Trump said in an interview with Fox News after the summit. Trump briefed European leaders after the summit, telling them that Putin called on Ukraine to yield the roughly a third or so of the Donbas, encompassing the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, that Russia does not currently control. In return, he'd offer to freeze the front lines in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, CNN's Kevin Liptak reported, citing European officials. This would force Ukraine into an agonizing dilemma. Some analysts fear such a deal would allow Moscow's forces a platform to launch a future attack. European leaders also said Trump voiced openness to providing US security guarantees for Ukraine once the war ends. This could be significant because the president has yet to commit to US support for any Western-led peace mission in the country. But he didn't specify what kind of backing he's willing to provide. CNN's Kit Maher reported Saturday that multiple European leaders had been invited to a meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Monday. It was unclear which of them will attend, but it raises the possibility of a new widening of Trump's peacemaking effort to include US allies. But the Kyiv government will also be on alert for any attempt to pressure it to make concessions to plans that Trump agreed with Putin. Dueling shows of force F-35 jets and a B-2 bomber accompany the plane carrying the Russian President Vladimir Putin as he arrives at Elmendorf-Richardson Joint Base ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump meeting in Alaska, United States on August 15, 2025. Fatih Aktas/Anadolu/Getty Images Friday's meeting began with a B-2 stealth bomber and F-22 fighters roaring overhead in a dramatic moment of US superpower signaling. But Putin one-upped that symbolism by greeting Trump with the words 'Good afternoon, dear neighbor,' as he leveraged the summit's location in Alaska to imply that the two countries had important and immediate mutual interests that should not be disrupted by a distant war in Europe. For Ukrainians and their European allies — who were shut out of the meeting and whom Trump briefed afterward — there was at least a moment of relief that Trump didn't sell Kyiv out. The fact that a US-Russia land swap plan didn't emerge from Alaska is a win for Europe's emergency pre-summit diplomacy. Still, Trump hinted that he will pile pressure on Ukraine's leader when they meet at the White House on Monday. It's 'now up to President Zelensky to get it done,' Trump told Fox News in the friendly post-summit interview, after refusing to answer questions with Putin in what had been billed as a joint press conference. Trump's options moving forward Before the summit, Trump obliterated careful efforts by his staff to lower expectations when he told Fox News, 'I won't be happy if I walk away without some form of a ceasefire.' President Donald Trump after speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One while en route to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, on Friday, August 15, 2025. Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP The failure to get there is important. Russia is happy to commit to a detailed peace process with interminable negotiations that would allow it to continue fighting — including in its increasingly successful summer offensive — while it talks. But Ukrainians are desperate for relief from years of Russian drone and missile attacks on civilians as a generation bleeds out on World War I-style battlefields. Peace talks without a ceasefire will leave it open to Russian or US pressure. Trump's zeal to work for peace in Ukraine is commendable, even if his repeated public requests for a Nobel Peace Prize raise questions about his ultimate motives. And one upside of the summit is that the US and Russia — the countries with the biggest nuclear arsenals — are talking again. But the underlying premise of Trump's peacemaking is that the force of his personality and his supposedly unique status as the world's greatest dealmaker can end wars. That myth is looking very ragged after his long flight home from Alaska. And by falling short of his own expectations in the Alaska summit, Trump left himself with some tough calculations about what to do next. ► Does he revert to his previous attempts to pressure Ukraine in search of an imposed peace that would validate Putin's illegal invasion and legitimize the idea that states can rewrite international borders, thereby reversing a foundation of the post-World War II-era? ► Or as the dust settles, and he seeks to repair damage to his prestige, does he revert to US pressure and sanctions to try to reset Russian calculations? He at least left open the possibility of sticks rather than carrots in his Fox News interview, saying: 'I may have to think about it in two weeks or three weeks or something, but we don't have to think about that right now.' ► Alternatively, Trump could commit to the Russian vision of talks on a final peace agreement. History shows that this would be neither quick nor honored by the Russians over the long term. He's hoping for a three-way summit between Putin, Zelensky and himself. That would satisfy his craving for spectacle and big made-for-TV events. But after Friday's evidence that Russia doesn't want to end the war, it's hard to see how it would create breakthroughs. ► Another possibility is that Trump simply gets discouraged or bored with the details and drudgery of a long-term peace process that lacks big, quick wins he can celebrate with his supporters. US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold a press conference following their meeting at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, 2025. Jeenah Moon/Reuters 'A large part of (Trump) is all about style. There's not a lot of real enjoyment of getting into the substance of things,' Jim Townsend, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy who is now affiliated with the Center for New American Security, said before the summit. 'He likes the meringue on top. And I think that's how you can be manipulated.' Trump's style-before-substance strategy clearly backfired in Alaska. Putin appeared far more prepared as Trump winged it. In retrospect, it's hard to see what the Russian president offered to US envoy Steve Witkoff in the Kremlin that convinced the administration that the Alaska talks were a good idea. And Russia is clearly playing on Trump's desire for photo-op moments in the expectation that it can keep him engaged while offering few other concessions. Trump's Nobel campaign suffered a setback Trump may remain the best hope for peace in Ukraine. He can speak directly to Putin, unlike Ukraine or its European allies. Ultimately, US power will be needed to guarantee Ukrainian security, since Europeans lack the capacity to do it alone. And the US retains the capability to hurt Russia and Putin with direct and secondary sanctions. But Trump has to want to do it. And for now he seems back under Putin's spell. The Russian leader's transparent manipulation of the US president and Trump's credulity will worry Ukraine. On Fox News, Trump said Putin praised his second term, saying the US was 'as hot as a pistol' and he had previously thought the US was 'dead.' Putin also publicly reinforced Trump's talking point that the invasion three years ago would 'never have happened' if he had been president. 'I'm quite sure that it would indeed be so. I can confirm that,' said Putin. Rescue workers extinguish a fire on a civilian enterprise in the Novobavarskyi district struck by a Russian drone on June 4, 2025, in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Viacheslav Mavrychev/Suspilne Ukraine/GlobalTrump told Fox News' Sean Hannity that he was 'so happy' to hear validation from Putin and that the Russian leader had reinforced another one of his false claims, telling him that 'you can't have a great democracy with mail-in voting.' That a US president would take such testimony at face value from a totalitarian strongman is mind-boggling — even more so in the light of US intelligence agency assessments that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump win. Ultimately, events in Alaska drove a hole through a White House claim in a recent statement that Trump is 'the President of Peace.' Trump has touted interventions that cooled hostilities in standoffs between India and Pakistan; Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo; Thailand and Cambodia; and Armenia and Azerbaijan to argue he's forging peace around the globe at an extraordinary clip. 'I seem to have an ability to end them,' Trump said on Fox News of these conflicts. He does deserve credit for effectively using US influence in these efforts, including with the unique cudgel of US trade benefits. He has saved lives, even if the deals are often less comprehensive than meets the eye. But his failure so far to end the Ukraine war that he pledged would be so easy to fix — along with US complicity in the humanitarian disaster in Gaza — means a legacy as a peacemaker and the Nobel Prize that he craves remain out of reach. Once, he predicted he could end the Ukraine war in 24 hours. Despite his bluster, a comment on Fox News shows that after Alaska, he has a better understanding of how hard it will be. 'I thought this would be the easiest of them all and it was the most difficult.' This story has been updated with additional developments.
Daily News Egypt
14 hours ago
- Daily News Egypt
Kenya Faces Backlash Over Role in Controversial Afrikaner Resettlement Plan
A fresh diplomatic storm is brewing in southern Africa as Kenya finds itself entangled in a contentious U.S.-backed program to resettle white Afrikaners from South Africa in the United States. The initiative, first launched under former U.S. President Donald Trump, has sparked legal disputes, political pushback, and rising tensions between Pretoria, Nairobi, and Washington. According to official sources, the U.S. State Department—working through the NGO Church World Service (CWS)—requested that Kenya send over 30 staff members to South Africa to help process resettlement applications. These staffers reportedly applied for 'volunteer visas' to enter the country, but South Africa's Home Affairs Ministry has signaled it may reject the requests, arguing that the work is paid and falls outside the scope of such visas. At the heart of the controversy is the unusual way the resettlement program operates. Instead of processing asylum cases in a third country, as is standard practice, the U.S. has chosen to evaluate claims directly within South Africa. The program initially targeted Afrikaners who claimed they were victims of racial persecution, but was later expanded to include 'ethnic minorities facing discrimination.' International bodies such as the International Organization for Migration have refused to recognize these applicants as legitimate refugees. Former UNHCR official Hans Lunschoff noted that processing asylum claims inside the country of origin is 'highly irregular and generally reserved for exceptional political cases, not mass relocations.' The initiative has fueled friction between South Africa and the U.S. President Cyril Ramaphosa has repeatedly rejected claims that minorities face systemic persecution, pointing out that violent crime in South Africa affects all racial groups. His government also bristled at Washington's decision to impose 30% tariffs on certain South African imports after failing to halt the program. Kenya's involvement has added a new layer of controversy. Nairobi-based CWS, which runs a regional office in East Africa, has been tasked with conducting medical screenings, cultural orientation, and travel logistics for the resettled Afrikaners. Kenyan nationals applying for visas to take part in the mission are believed to be tied to this organization, which has both American and Kenyan leadership figures. With the first group of Afrikaner families already relocated to the U.S. earlier this year and another wave expected by late August, the political fallout is intensifying. Critics in both South Africa and Kenya accuse Washington of politicizing migration, while human rights experts warn of dangerous precedents in redefining refugee status along racial or ideological lines. The dispute risks straining Kenya's ties with both Pretoria and Washington, raising broader questions about the intersection of migration policy, geopolitics, and the ethics of selective resettlement.
Egypt Independent
a day ago
- Egypt Independent
Russia built a massive drone factory to pump out Iranian-designed drones. Now it's leaving Tehran out in the cold
'Finally, something no one else has,' a Russian journalist says during a TV documentary on the country's largest drone factory. 'Such mass production of two-stroke engines doesn't exist anywhere else in Russia.' The factory in question, Alabuga, 600 miles east of Moscow in Russia's Tatarstan region, has been pumping out increasing numbers of the Iranian-designed Shahed-136 attack drone (known in Russia as Geran), but the man behind the site believes this may be one of its greatest achievements. 'This is a complete facility,' CEO Timur Shagivaleev adds in the documentary, explaining most of the components for the drone are now produced locally. 'Aluminium bars come in, engines are made from them; microelectronics are made from electric chips; fuselages are made from carbon fiber and fiberglass – this is a complete location.' The claim signals that production of the Iranian-designed Shahed, which has been the backbone of Moscow's drone war on Ukraine, has now been mostly absorbed into Russia's military industrial machine. Analysts and intelligence officials believe 90% of production stages now happen at Alabuga or other Russian facilities. To that end, recent satellite imagery shows the site is continuing to expand, with new production facilities and dorms that would allow it to scale up production exponentially. Analysts CNN spoke with believe this growth would allow Russia to potentially export an updated and battle-tested version of the drone it originally imported from Iran – maybe even to Tehran itself. But a Western intelligence source says the expansion and the complete Russian integration of the Shahed-136, have effectively marginalized Iran, revealing a rift between Moscow and Tehran. They say Tehran has been growing increasingly impatient with the little return it's received from Russia, despite having supported Moscow's war effort with not just drones, but missiles and other assets. That discontent effectively boiled over throughout Israel's 12-day bombing campaign of targeting Iran's nuclear weapons program in June, during which Russia's statements of condemnation were seen as paltry support for a country that has been helping Moscow since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 'Iran may have expected Russia to do more or take more steps without being required to do so,' Ali Akbar Dareini, an analyst for the Tehran-based Center for Strategic Studies, the research arm of the Iranian President's office, told CNN. They may not intervene militarily, but they may beef operative support, in terms of weapons shipments, technological support, intelligence sharing, or things like that.' But Russia's distant approach was not surprising for the Western intelligence official CNN spoke with, who argued it showed the 'purely transactional and utilitarian nature' of Russian cooperation with Iran. 'This explicit disengagement demonstrates that Russia never intervenes beyond its immediate interests, even when a partner – here an essential supplier of drones – is attacked,' they said. Strategic partnership After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it began importing Iranian Shahed drones. By early 2023, Moscow and Tehran had inked a $1.75 billion deal for Russia to make the drones domestically. The 6,000 drones by September 2025 stipulated in the initial contract were manufactured about a year ahead of schedule and, according to Ukraine's Defense Intelligence, Alabuga is now pumping out more than 5,500 units per month. It's also doing so in a more efficient and cost-effective way. 'In 2022, Russia paid an average of 200,000 US dollars for one such drone,' a Ukrainian Defense Intelligence source said. 'In 2025, that number came down to approximately 70,000 US dollars.' Ukraine also said Russia has also modernized the drone, with improved communications, longer-lasting batteries and much larger warheads, making them deadlier and harder to bring down. The Western intelligence official said Iran initially seemed to embrace Russia's efforts to localize roughly 90% of production of the Shahed 136 at Alabuga but Moscow's upgrades seem to have caught it off guard. 'This evolution marks a gradual loss of control for Iran over the final product, which is now largely manufactured locally and independently,' the source explained. They added Moscow's end goal is 'to fully master the production cycle and free itself from future negotiations with Tehran.' Dareini says Russia's predatory behavior is not surprising and describes the relationship between the two countries as 'both cooperation and competition.' 'It's obvious that Russians want more, to get more and give less, and this is this applies to Iran as well,' he explained. 'Iran has provided Russia with drones and technology and the factory, and it has not been for free.' But in the process of expanding, the official says, Alabuga has been unable to meet obligations to its Iranian partners. According to them, in addition to the loss of control over the final product, Iranian authorities and companies, namely Sahara Thunder, have complained that some payments have not been made, in part because of the suffocating international sanctions the Russian economy has been under for more than three years. CNN has been unable to independently verify this. CNN has reached out to the Alabuga administration for comment but has yet to hear back. 'These obstacles add to Tehran's frustration with the blockages hindering the transfer of Russian aeronautical technologies to Iran, which were promised by Moscow in exchange for its support,' the official added. Salvaging the relationship? The ceasefire between Israel and Iran has seen Tehran mostly withdraw from the international sphere to regroup, reorganize and rebuild what was destroyed during the conflict. And in addition to the well-publicized damage to Iran's nuclear facilities, Israel targeted several other Iranian facilities. David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector and head of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) think tank, believes Alabuga's expansion may allow Moscow to provide some meaningful support and send some of the updated versions of the Shahed back to Iran. 'Some of [Iran's] drone production facilities were bombed and they fired a lot of [drones], so as a way to build back stock, they may do that,' Albright said. 'And then then Iran could reverse engineer or receive the technology to make the better quality Shahed.' 'I think it's very dangerous,' he added. Other military equipment may be making its way to Tehran as well. Open-source flight tracking data shows a Gelix Airlines Ilyushin–76 military cargo plane flew from Moscow to Tehran on July 11. The IL-76 is a heavy transport plane frequently used by the Russian military to ferry troops and military equipment, and Gelix Airlines has been associated with the transport of military equipment in the past. The aircraft spent around three hours on the ground and then flew back to Moscow. CNN was unable to confirm what was on board but Iranian media reported it was the final components of a Russian S-400 air defense system. CNN asked the Russia Ministry of Defense for comment on the tension between the two countries but has not received a response. Similarly, CNN also reached out to the Iranian government, both in Tehran and via its embassy in the UK, but has yet to hear back. These latest developments highlight Dareini's core belief about relations between the two countries: while there may be tension, ultimately Iran will also reap the benefits of the partnership. 'Iran has got, and very likely will get the things it needs for its own security,' he explained. 'Whether it's military hardware, whether it's in terms of economic cooperation, technology and whatever it needs.'
