BOGOTA, March 24 (Reuters) - Four Colombian soldiers were killed and six were missing after their patrol was attacked by leftist guerrillas in the country's southern jungles, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said on Tuesday. Two rebels were killed in related fighting, Santos told a news conference. The attack took place on Monday in the southern province of Guaviare, where security forces are hunting guerrilla leaders who have been pushed deep into the wilderness by a U.S.-backed security crackdown. Colombia is in a 45-year-old war against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which is fighting to impose socialism in the Andean country. Some FARC commanders have been reduced to hiding in caves in places such as Guaviare where they once operated with impunity. "This is an offensive not just in Guaviare but throughout the national territory," Santos said. The guerrillas, funded by extortion and cocaine trafficking, hold hundreds of Colombians for ransom and political leverage. Three American defense contractors and French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt were rescued in 2008 when soldiers duped the FARC into loading them and 11 other hostages onto a helicopter piloted by state intelligence officers posing as representatives of a leftist humanitarian group. (Reporting by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Will Dunham)
Freed Swedish hostage Erik Roland Larsson is greeted by family members of other kidnap victims after he was freed by rebels of the FARC in Monteria in this frame grab March ...
