FARC rebels attacked a community festival over the weekend in a town in northwestern Colombia, killing two soldiers and wounding two civilians, officials said.
Fighters from the 36th Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, staged the attack Saturday night in San Andres de Cuerquia, a town in Antioquia province.
The rebels opened fire on some soldiers who were on patrol in the town, San Andres de Cuerquia Mayor Oscar de Jesus Sepulveda told Caracol Radio.
"Two subjects opened fire at (the soldiers at) point blank range," Sepulveda said, adding that two civilians were also wounded in the attack.
Municipal officials decided to suspend the festival, which was not supposed to end until Monday, the mayor said.
San Andres de Cuerquia's annual festival, which started on Friday, features a beauty contest, dances and other events.
The Colombian government has made fighting the FARC a top priority and has obtained billions in U.S. aid for counterinsurgency operations.
The FARC is on both the U.S. and EU lists of terrorist groups. Drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping-for-ransom are the FARC's main means of financing its operations.
The FARC has suffered a series of setbacks in recent years at the hands of the Colombian security forces.
Alfonso Cano, the FARC's top leader, was killed on Nov. 4 in a military and police operation that the government hailed as the biggest blow to the FARC in its nearly 50-year history.
Cano, a 63-year-old intellectual who had entered the ranks of the FARC 30 years ago, was killed in in a remote area of the southwestern province of Cauca a few hours after fleeing a bombardment.
The FARC also suffered a series of blows in 2008, with the biggest coming in July of that year, when the Colombian army rescued a group of high-profile rebel-held captives: former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, U.S. military contractors Thomas Howes, Keith Stansell and Marc Gonsalves, and 11 other Colombian police officers and soldiers.
