Colombian police arrest 24 rebels
A total of 24 guerrillas of the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN) were arrested on charges of trafficking arms, explosives and drugs, the Colombian police chief said Saturday.

The arrests were made several days before the Easter Week in an operation codenamed "Operation April 24," said General Jorge Castro.

In the operation, three policemen infiltrated into the ELN in Norte de Santander department near the border with Venezuela, according to the general.

The recordings of telephone conversations suggested that there were possible ties between the ELN and members of the National Guard of Venezuela and that the ELN swapped drugs for arms and explosives.

The operation was named after an explosion which occurred on that date in 2004, when a technician lost his legs while trying to remove explosives in a bus planted by the ELN in Norte de Santander.

The hundred-hour recordings, which are kept in the Attorney General's Office, contain conversations between ELN members and their contacts in Venezuela, pointing to terrorist actions and weapons and drugs deals.

The ELN, with its 4,500 combatants, is the second largest guerrilla group in Colombia after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Colombia has been ravaged by a four-decade-long civil war, in which government forces, leftist guerrillas and far right paramilitaries fight one another. About 3,500 people, mostly civilians, are killed in the conflict every year.