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Marzo 22, 2006
Puzzling Bombing
Both Miguel B. and Boz picked up on this recent developing story about a pair of bomb blasts in La Paz, leaving two dead. Police have arrested Uruguayan and U.S. nationals. According to this Mexican media site, the two that are in custody are Alda Ribeiros and Claudio Lestat, respectively. A quick Google search found no results for Lestat or Lestad (as another article mentioned). Although this Erbol article mentions that he has a criminal record for blowing up an ATM machine in Argentina.
Update 1: Photos can be found on the Yahoo! news page:
Update 2: The Associated Press has a bit more information about the two suspects:
But other Bolivian officials discounted terrorism as a motive, saying the American appeared to be mentally ill.
"The possible motives behind these attacks are incomprehensible. There don't seem to be any concrete objectives other than causing deaths," Deputy Interior Minister Rafael Puente told Radio Fides.
A third attack was foiled by police, Puente said.
Update 3: Paul Mason from the BBC has also been covering the bombing and other aspects of Bolivian life on his recently discovered blog, Idle Scrawl.
Update 4: This case is getting increasingly weirder by the minute. Religious motives have not been ruled out by the Bolivian police.
Update 5: CNN reports that the third target was the Chilean consulate in La Paz. Fortunately, that planned attack was foiled by police. In addition, the U.S. condemns the attack, while Morales weakly tries to link the actions of a single American to the actions of an entire country.
Posted by eduardo at Marzo 22, 2006 02:18 PM
Comments
Isn't Morales incredibly irresponsible to call this a "terrorist" bombing without any proof and to use it as just one more platform to bash the U.S.? There are reasons to bash the U.S. government but this isn't one of them.
Posted by: O at Marzo 22, 2006 05:18 PM
Yes, his comments were awful.
Posted by: eduardo at Marzo 22, 2006 11:55 PM
Eduardo,
Do you happen to have a link (English or Spanish) to Evo's comments?
Posted by: Grant at Marzo 27, 2006 11:07 AM