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CARACAS/QUITO-Venezuela and Ecuador sent troops to their borders with Colombia on Sunday after their Andean neighbor bombed Colombian rebels inside Ecuador in an attack Caracas said could spark a war. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez also deployed tanks to the frontier, mobilized warplanes and withdrew his diplomats from Bogota in the worst dispute in the unstable region for years.Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, a close ally of the leftist, anti-U.S. Chavez, expelled Colombia's ambassador and recalled his own envoy from Bogota in protest over what he said was an intentional violation of his nation's sovereignty.Colombia responded to Correa by offering its apologies for the troops crossing the frontier, but said the operation on a jungle rebel camp was necessary because its forces came under fire from inside Ecuador.But Colombia, a U.S. ally, also said it found documents at the camp that linked Correa to the guerrillas."May God spare us a war. But we are not going to allow them to violate our sovereign territory," Chavez, an ex-paratrooper said.Colombia's troops killed on Saturday Raul Reyes, a leader of Marxist FARC rebels, during an attack on a jungle camp in Ecuador in a severe blow to Latin America's oldest guerrilla insurgency. The operation included air strikes and fighting across the border.Chavez, who had warned a similar operation in Venezuela would be "cause for war,"threatened to send Russian-made fighter jets into U.S. ally Colombia if its troops also struck inside his OPEC country.To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah....
