U.S. Debating Wider Assault on Colombia Rebels


WASHINGTON -- Alarmed by signs of weapons traffic between Colombian rebels and the Middle East, the Bush administration is weighing a proposal to declare the destruction of leftist guerrillas in the South American country an explicit goal of U.S. policy.

Some senior officials are also pushing for the administration to assert, for the first time, that the Colombian rebels are a specific target of the worldwide U.S. war on terrorism, administration officials said.