WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) - The CIA has obtained intelligence alleging that the head of Colombia's U.S.-backed army collaborated extensively with right-wing militias that Washington considers terrorist organizations, the Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday. Disclosure of the allegation about army chief Gen. Mario Montoya comes as the approximately $700 million a year in aid Colombia's government receives from the United States is under scrutiny by Democrats in Congress, the Times said. Montoya has had a close association with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and would be the highest-ranking Colombian officer implicated in a growing scandal over links between the outlawed militias and some of Uribe's political allies. A Colombian government spokesman declined to comment on the Times report. Eight pro-Uribe lawmakers and one state governor have been arrested on charges they colluded with paramilitary commands, which were set up in the 1980s to help fight Marxist rebels and are accused of some of the worst atrocities and massacres in the conflict. Most of the paramilitaries have now demobilized under a peace deal with Uribe but revelations are surfacing about ties to the political elite as investigators probe crimes. Rights groups have long charged some military officers cooperated with the militias in a brutal counter-insurgency campaign. Uribe has said he welcomes the investigations to cleanse the government of criminal influence. ANTI-GUERRILLA OPERATION The intelligence about Montoya is contained in a report recently circulated within the CIA. It says that Montoya and a paramilitary group jointly planned and conducted a military operation in 2002 to eliminate Marxist guerrillas from poor areas around Medellin, the Times said. At least 14 people were killed during the operation, and opponents of Uribe allege that dozens more disappeared in its aftermath, it reported. The intelligence report includes information from another Western intelligence service and indicates that U.S. officials have received similar reports from other reliable sources, the Times said. The Times said the CIA document was made available to the paper by a source who declined to identify himself except as a U.S. government employee. He said he was disclosing the information because he was unhappy that Uribe's government had not been held more to account by the Bush administration. The CIA did not dispute the authenticity of the document, although agency officials declined to confirm it, the paper said. Replying to a question by Reuters, CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said the Times report included "unconfirmed material" from another intelligence service and made it "less likely that friendly countries will share information with the United States." The allied intelligence agency said its informant was a yet-unproven source and cautioned that the report was to be treated as raw intelligence, the paper said. But the document also included a comment from the defense attache of the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Col. Rey A. Velez: "This report confirms information provided by a proven source," the Times said. (Additional reporting by Patrick Markey in Bogota and Gilbert Le Gras in Washington)
