IED attacks against increasingly high-profile targets pose death and injury risks in Colombia's Bogotá and Pereira

President Juan Manuel Santos (second right) speaks at a press conference after an explosion in the Andino shopping centre in Bogota, Colombia, on 18 June 2017.

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The nine arrested individuals face various charges related to the detonation of an improvised explosive device (IED) at the Andino shopping centre, located in Bogota's upmarket El Retiro district, on 17 June. The device, containing 800g of ammonal (a mixture of ammonium nitrate, aluminium, and sulphur), was detonated in the female toilets at 17:00 local time on a busy shopping day. Three died in the attack, including a French national, and at least another eight were injured. Following early investigations – in which police examined the potential involvement of the Ejército de Liberación Nacional: ELN), dissident factions of the demobilising Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), as well as various other criminal and paramilitary groups – authorities have since attributed the attack to the Movimiento Revolucionario del Pueblo (MRP), an urban militia group previously deemed to be of little threat. Authorities now attribute as many as 15 previous IED attacks in Bogotá and Pereira to the group, although the majority of these involved only small-scale explosions and "pamphlet bombs".

The first MRP IED explosion occurred in August 2016, when militia members detonated three small devices in the bathrooms of the offices of healthcare companies Cafesalud and Salud Total in Bogotá, causing no casualties. A larger attack, on 18 January 2017, saw the MRP detonate a device at the DIAN tax agency in the capital's Teusaquillo district in apparent protest against fiscal reforms which precipitated a decline on firms' overall tax burdens. Two people were injured in this incident. In light of the Andino attack, authorities are also reinvestigating previous IED incidents attributed to insurgents from the ELN to assess whether they were, in fact, the responsibility of the MRP. The most significant of these was an explosion that occurred near the Santamaría Bullring in Bogotá on 19 February, in which one police officer died and 25 were injured. Although most MRP attacks have occurred in Bogotá, several IED devices have been placed in the city of Pereira, including a small pamphlet bomb detonated in a Cafesalud bathroom in May.

An emerging militia

Prior to the Andino attack, Colombia's security forces dedicated few institutional resources to the MRP, believing it to be part of the ELN and posing little in the way of public security threat. Such an interpretation was supported by the MRP itself, which has strenuously denied its involvement in the more significant IED attacks (including the Andino event); instead blaming the attacks on unidentified nefarious right-wing groups which it claims have engaged in false flag operations to delegitimise leftist calls for redistributive reform. For its part, the ELN has also appeared happy to be attributed responsibility for previous MRP attacks, likely in the belief that a show of strength will improve its negotiating position with the government in incipient peace talks.

Although the MRP does appear to have some links to ELN insurgents – for instance, several MRP members reportedly received explosives training by the ELN's Domingo Laín unit in Arauca department – it remains critical of the group and seems, on the available information, to maintain operational independence from the ELN. Further intelligence gathering on the group has proved challenging, especially given the MRP's cell structure under which any individual member has limited or no contact with the rest of the group. Although this has inhibited efforts to determine the size of the organisation accurately, the fact that the MRP has operated for months without attracting much law enforcement attention indicates that there are likely no more than a few dozen members. However, thus far authorities have ascertained that the group's adherents are mainly drawn from Colombia's highly politicised public universities (especially Bogotá's notoriously radical National University of Colombia); are strongly critical of the peace process with both the ELN and FARC; and oppose most policies pursued by current and former presidents Juan Manuel Santos and Álvaro Uribe. Judging by their IED target selection, the group also appears critical of the operations of many Colombian healthcare providers.

Outlook and implications

In the year or so since the first MRP attack, the group has shown a tendency to target increasingly high-profile areas, and to be somewhat less cautious about avoiding civilian causalities. Although its early IED attacks occurred in quiet and sparsely populated areas of southern Bogotá, it later progressed to targeting health centres in the city's busier and more affluent northern end. Later, it moved on to detonate devices in the financial sector and, potentially, also to have carried out the larger, fatal bombing of 19 February. In apparently targeting a popular shopping centre, the group has again escalated the security threat represented by its actions. This probably reflects a desire to increase media and political attention on the organisation and its political aims; an aspect notably absent in the aftermath of its previous attacks. Whether the Andino fatalities were a result of accident or design (authorities now suspect the device was erroneously detonated at 17:00 instead of 05:00 local time), the group's selection of more densely populated targets for its IED devices in both Bogotá and Pereira means an escalating risk of death and injury for any caught in their immediate vicinity.