Colombian president reports ‘assassination attempt’

The alleged plot comes after a senator escaped a kidnapping attempt in the run-up to elections

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has claimed he has survived an assassination attempt following months of warnings about an alleged plot by drug traffickers to target him.

The South American nation has been scarred by decades of conflict involving guerrillas and other armed groups. The alleged attempt on his life also comes ahead of congressional elections on March 8 and presidential elections scheduled for May.

During a live-streamed cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Petro said that hours earlier he was in his helicopter with his daughters and was unable to land at a destination in the Colombian department of Cordoba on the Caribbean coast due to fears that unidentified individuals “were going to shoot.”

“I’m trying to escape being killed. That’s why I couldn’t arrive on time last night, because I couldn’t land where I had said. This morning, I couldn’t land where I was supposed to either, because there was information that the helicopter was going to be shot at,” he said.

Constitutionally barred from seeking a second term, Petro claimed that a drug-trafficking organization has targeted him since he took office in August 2022. He had previously reported another alleged attempt on his life in 2024.

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According to El Tiempo, Colombia’s largest cartel, the Gulf Clan, operates in Cordoba. The outlet also notes that the group recently suspended peace talks with the government after Petro agreed with US President Donald Trump on cooperation to capture cartel leader Hobanis de Jesus Avila Villadiego.

Petro and Trump met at the White House earlier this month amid rising tensions, with the latter criticizing Colombia’s efforts against drug trafficking as inadequate after previously calling the country’s president an “illegal narco-leader.” Petro rejected the accusations and criticized Washington’s operations in the Caribbean and Venezuela, actions he said were harmful to regional stability.

Petro made the latest statements after Colombian Senator Aida Quilcue was taken by unknown people in her home department of Cauca, a conflict-affected, coca-growing region contested by dissidents of the now-disbanded FARC guerrilla army.

The award‑winning Indigenous activist was rescued, her team reported on X, hours after the vehicle she had been traveling in with two bodyguards was found abandoned. The 53‑year‑old activist told AFP she had been taken by “various armed men,” without saying which group they belonged to.