Car bomb wounds eight in southern Colombian city

BOGOTA, Mar 1 (Reuters) At least eight people were wounded when Colombian guerrillas exploded a car bomb in a suspected assassination attempt on the mayor of a southern city, authorities today said.

Local television showed a bus in flames near the wreck of the car and debris scattered over the street. Eight people were wounded in the blast in Neiva, (300 km) south of the capital Bogota, the civil defense agency said.

''Everything points to an assassination attempt on the mayor of Neiva,'' Police Col Miguel Angel Bojaca told local radio.

Neiva Mayor Cielo Gonzalez has received threats from leftist guerrillas fighting a four-decade-old conflict. A grenade was fired at her house in 2003 and a bodyguard was killed during an assassination attempt on her father.

Violence has ebbed in Colombia since US ally President Alvaro Uribe came to office in 2002 promising to crush the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, rebels and tackle the drug trade that helps fuel the fighting.

But the FARC remains a potent force in rural parts of the country. Last year around 600 soldiers and police were killed in combat with the FARC and other armed groups and thousands of people are forced from their homes each year by combat.

REUTERS SY BST2121