Shopping Center Blast in Colombia Kills 3 and Injures 9<br />Authorities immediately focused on the country’s largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army, or E.L.N., which in February claimed responsibility for a bombing near a bullring in Bogotá<br />that killed one police officer and injured at least 20 other people.<br />By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSJUNE 17, 2017<br />BOGOTÁ, Colombia — A strong explosion rocked one of the busiest shopping centers in Colombia’s capital on Saturday, killing three people<br />and injuring nine others, the authorities there said.<br />Mayor Enrique Peñalosa of Bogotá condemned what he called a "cowardly terrorist bombing" at the<br />upscale Centro Andino, a shopping center located in the heart of the city’s tourist district.<br />Mayor Peñalosa said one of the victims, a 23-year-old Frenchwoman, had been volunteering in a<br />poor neighborhood in Colombia for the past six months, and was preparing to return to France.<br />Last year, the country’s government reached a peace agreement with the Revolutionary<br />Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, which was much bigger than the E.L.N.<br />All vehicles entering the shopping center’s parking garage are screened by bomb-sniffing dogs, and security guards are present throughout the mall.
