Seven injured in bomb attack in Bogota, Colombia

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Five police and two civilians were injured after a bomb exploded in the south of Colombia's capital Bogota on Thursday, police said, in the latest of a string of attacks in the city. The remote-controlled bomb, left on the median strip of an avenue in the south of the city of 7 million, was detonated as police officers passed by on motorcycles, an official from the Metropolitan Police said. The authorities have not made any arrests or blamed any group for the attack, one of six in the capital over the past month. One attack targeted the headquarters of a political party, and another, the branch of a bank. The head of the national police force, General Rodolfo Palomino, said recently he did not rule out the possibility that urban commanders from the leftist ELN guerrillas were responsible. The ELN is the smaller counterpart of the Marxist FARC rebels who have been fighting the government for 50 years and who have been engaged in peace talks for more than two years that last week yielded a deal for the removal of landmines. (Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Peter Murphy; Editing by Bernadette Baum)