Bogota car bomb kills six and injures at least 12
The explosion occurred in a commercial area filled with electronic, clothing and liquor stores as employees were arriving for work. The goods sold in the San Andresito neighbourhood are contraband and cheaper than those found in legal shopping districts.
Residents had alerted police to a suspicious Jeep in the neighbourhood, police General Jorge Daniel Castro said. When police went to check it out, the bomb exploded, killing two officers, he said. Four civilians were also killed, and at least 12 were injured, Mayor Antanas Mockus said.
Teodora Lagos, a cleaning woman, was entering a nearby bank when she heard the explosion.
"We all ran out, and looked around. There was smoke everywhere," she said. "I saw four dead people, including the woman who sells coffee here."
Ms Lagos, 31, was outraged by the attack.
"This violence must stop," she said. "Why must innocent people die?"
It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attack.
Police have recently reported that right-wing paramilitary groups have been extorting money from vendors in San Andresito.
Leftist rebels fighting in Colombia's 39-year civil war have also increasingly been bringing the war to the nation's cities.
In February, members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, bombed an exclusive social club in the capital, killing 36 people and injuring 160 others.
FARC rebels were also blamed for an attack on a nightclub in the city of Florencia in late September that killed 12 people and injured dozens of others.
Colombia's long-simmering war has pitted the rebels against the government and the right-wing paramilitary fighters. About 3,500 people, mostly civilians, are killed in the war each year.
