A brutal drug lord with a $2.5m (€1.88m) bounty on his head and reputed ties to right-wing militias died during clashes with security forces in southern Colombia, President Juan Manuel Santos announced.

Fifteen hostages, including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three US military contractors, have been freed, the Army said tonight.

A British newspaper reporter and an American photographer have been kidnapped by Colombian rebels, the first foreign journalists to be abducted in recent memory in the country’s long war.

A car bomb blast in eastern Colombia killed three people and wounded at least six others today.

Suspected right-wing paramilitary fighters kidnapped as many as 207 workers off palm oil plantations in Colombia in what the army described as the country’s biggest mass kidnapping.