Twenty-nine people were killed in fierce fighting on Wednesday after leftist guerrillas attacked a police station in northern Colombia, in the country's bloodiest incident this year, officials said.
The violence comes two weeks after President Alvaro Uribe renewed his vow to crush the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's largest and best-armed guerrilla group, who were blamed for the attack.
The dead included 17 police officers, 11 rebels and a civilian. Two police officers and a civilian were injured in the fighting, National Police chief Jorge Castro said.
Guerrillas attacked the police station of Tierradentro, in the northern department of Cordoba, at 3 am (0800 GMT) on Wednesday, firing rifles and launching home-made mortars made with gas cylinders, he said.
At least 150 guerrillas joined in the attack on the station, which had 70 police officers, he said.
Castro was in the provincial capital of Monteria to co-ordinate operations to hunt down the rebels.
Tierradentro is located some 380 kilometres (235 miles) north of Bogota.
The head of the Colombian Air Force, General Jorge Ballesteros, said that he ordered helicopter gunships and low-flying airplanes to the area to hunt down the rebels.
The region was formerly a stronghold of the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), a right-wing paramilitary group that recently left the area after reaching a peace agreement with government negotiators. Some 31,000 AUC fighters disarmed as part of the peace process, according to the government.
Coca, the source plant for cocaine, is also widely grown in the region. Both leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary forces have financed operations through coca cultivation.
The illegal drug trade fuels the violence that has killed an estimated 200,000 Colombians over the past 40 years.
The fierce attack, the deadliest this year, comes two weeks after Uribe abruptly ended negotiations with the Marxist rebels on a hostage swap and ordered the army to step up operations aimed at rescuing abductees.
The swap deal the two sides discussed would have exchanged 58 high-profile hostages, including former presidential candidate and senator Ingrid Betancourt, a French national, and three US nationals, for some 500 jailed rebels.
Uribe ended all speculation of a prisoner-for-hostages swap after a car bomb exploded in the country's largest military complex in Bogota on October 19, wounding 21. Uribe quickly blamed the FARC for the attack
"The only path that is left is a military rescue of those who have been kidnapped. We cannot go on with the farce of a humanitarian swap as suggested by the FARC," Uribe said in an address to the nation on October 20.
The Colombian president is to travel to Tierradentro on Thursday, according to a source in the presidential palace.
First elected in 2002 and re-elected in late May, Uribe -- US President George W. Bush's closest ally in Latin America -- has long vowed to defeat the 17,000 strong rebel force.