Bomb kills at least two in troubled Colombia port

BOGOTA, June 24 (Reuters) Two people were killed today when leftist guerrillas detonated a bomb in Colombia's main port, Buenaventura, where rebels have been blamed for a series of attacks over the last two days, authorities said.

Seven bombs or grenades exploded at a police station and commercial centers on Friday and yesterday, injuring 23 people in the Pacific port city, which handles about half of the Andean country's international shipments.

In the latest attack, officials said rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, detonated a bomb as a vehicle passed a tourist area, killing one person and a three-year-old girl and wounding seven others.

''This is retaliation from the FARC for the killing of one of their key leaders,'' Interior Minister Carlos Holguin told local Caracol Radio. ''These bandits have decided to attack the civilian population and create acts of terror.'' Colombia remains the world's biggest producer of cocaine despite billions in US military and counternarcotics aid to fight guerrillas who use drug trafficking and extortion to finance Latin America's oldest insurgency.

Violence from the conflict has dropped under Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, but the FARC, a smaller rebel group known as the ELN, and renegade paramilitaries are still fighting in remote parts of the country, often over the spoils of the drug trade.

Buenaventura, with its easy access to the coast, has become embroiled in a battle among urban guerrilla groups, drug traffickers and paramilitary gangs for control of lucrative narcotics smuggling routes.

Experts say Colombia produces around 600 to 700 tonnes of cocaine a year, most of its destined for the United States and Europe.

REUTERS SRS BST0355