2019 Bogotá car bombing

On the morning of 17 January 2019, a grey 1993 Nissan Patrol truck loaded with approximately 80 kilograms of pentolite explosives was driven into the General Santander National Police Academy in Bogotá, Colombia. Authorities stated that the driver dropped off a passenger at a nearby bus stop before entering the academy via a delivery side street. When a detection dog signaled the presence of explosives, the driver forced the vehicle through a security checkpoint, striking security guards, before the explosives detonated near the women's dormitories as cadets were leaving a promotion ceremony. The blast killed 22 people, including the driver, and injured 68 others. Suicide attacks of this kind are unusual in Colombia, and this was the deadliest attack on the capital since the 2003 El Nogal Club bombing.

Colombian Attorney General Néstor Humberto Martínez identified the driver as José Aldemar Rojas Rodríguez, known as "Mocho Kiko," a 57-year-old alleged to have been affiliated with the ELN for roughly three decades and to have served as an explosives expert and intelligence figure for the group. Authorities said Rojas had allegedly taught bomb-making to guerrilla militants in Venezuela since 2011. Investigators stated the attack had been planned for more than ten months and traced the truck's purchase in May 2018 and a subsequent inspection in Arauca, near the Colombia–Venezuela border, an area where the ELN maintains a presence.

A second individual, identified as Ricardo Carvajal, was arrested in Bogotá in the early hours of 18 January after allegedly confessing to involvement over an intercepted telephone call; he was previously investigated, and acquitted, in a 2012 drug trafficking case. Carvajal denied involvement in the bombing, and his family stated that items found with him, including coveralls, were related to his work. Colombian authorities said operations to identify and capture additional suspects were continuing in Bogotá and Arauca.

Following the attack, Colombian President Iván Duque Márquez announced on 18 January that peace dialogue between the government and the ELN was suspended. He demanded that Cuba extradite ELN leaders sheltering there under prior peace-talks protocols and criticized Venezuela over the ELN's presence along the shared border. Cuba stated it would abide by the protocols governing the dialogue, including provisions for a rupture in negotiations. The ELN subsequently claimed responsibility for the bombing, describing it as retaliation for Colombian government attacks on its camps during a unilateral ceasefire, and called for peace dialogue to resume.

Among those killed was an Ecuadorian cadet, Erika Chicó; nationals of Panama, the United States, and Ecuador were also among the wounded. Governments including Ecuador, Panama, the United States, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and Venezuela, as well as the Organization of American States, condemned the attack.