Colombian rebels kill 5 soldiers in coca field

Colombian FARC rebels killed five soldiers after attacking them with explosives near the border with Ecuador while troops were eradicating illegal coca crops used to make cocaine, the army said on Saturday.

Colombia's long war is waning due to President Alvaro Uribe's U.S.-backed campaign to deploy troops to take on the guerrillas, but Latin America's oldest insurgency is still a force in rural areas where the state presence is weak. (Reuters)