Colombia bomb blast kills 15 as police foil assassination plot

SUSPECTED rebels planned to assassinate Colombian President Alvaro Uribe with a huge bomb this weekend. But, when police discovered the device yesterday, the suspected rebels detonated it, killing 15 people and wounding dozens, authorities said.

The suspected rebels had planned to detonate the bomb, located in a house near the airport in the southern city of Neiva, as Uribe's plane passed overhead during a scheduled visit today , according to Hernando de Valenzuela, chief of the local prosecutor's office, and explosives experts at the scene. The plan was to blow Uribe's plane out of the sky as it passed overhead, the officials said.

But the suspected rebels detonated the bomb after authorities found out about the explosives and were raiding the house, authorities said. It was not immediately clear how police learned of the location of the explosives.