CARTEL STEPS UP POLICE ATTACKS AS COLOMBIA POWER TRANSFER NEARS

A dozen police officers have been killed, and dozens more injured in recent weeks by Colombia’s most powerful drug gang, the Gulf Clan. The group has been sowing terror in the country since May, when its boss Dario Antonio Usuga, known as Otoniel, was extradited to the United States to face trafficking charges. But those attacks have intensified even more recently as Colombia approaches the transfer of power on August 7 from conservative President Ivan Duque to leftist former guerrilla Gustavo Petro, who has vowed to negotiate with criminal gangs in a bid to end a decades-long conflict in exchange for more lenient sanctions.

Since the beginning of the year, 25 police officers have been killed by the Gulf Clan, almost half of them in the last month, according to officials. Another 60 officers have been injured in dozens of attacks using firearms and explosives.

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