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A deadly car bomb at a Bogot\u00e1 police academy<\/a> claimed by Colombia\u2019s National Liberation Army, or ELN, is the latest sign that Colombia\u2019s civil war is not over. President Ivan Duque called the January attack, which killed 21 military personnel<\/a> and wounded 68, a \u201ccrazy terrorist act.\u201d<\/p>\n The leftist ELN became Colombia\u2019s largest guerrilla group after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, disbanded following a peace agreement<\/a> with the government in September 2016.<\/p>\n As I write in my new book on the counter-insurgency efforts<\/a> leading up to the peace deal, there were already clear signs that neutralizing the FARC would not end Colombia\u2019s 52-year armed conflict.<\/p>\n A complex conflict<\/strong><\/p>\n What Colombians call \u201cel conflicto\u201d \u2013 the conflict \u2013 was never a simple two-way fight of everyone versus the FARC. It was, and remains, a set of overlapping and interrelated conflicts<\/a> involving the government, Marxist rebels, right-wing militias and drug cartels, staggered across the decades from 1964 to today.<\/p>\n The 2016 FARC deal was a historic<\/a> achievement. After its signing, armed conflict-related fatalities in Colombia dropped from about 3,000 a year to just 78<\/a>.<\/p>\n But an ever-changing array of criminal gangs still operate in Colombia, profiting off drug production, illegal mining and extortion<\/a>. The landscape of their territorial control has simply changed, with the ELN, Autodefensa Gaitanista de Colombia and other armed groups spreading into areas once run by the FARC.<\/p>\n Other political violence has ticked up<\/a> since the 2016 accord, too, including the targeted killing of indigenous and Afro-Colombian activists<\/a>.<\/p>\n The FARC is not entirely defunct, either.<\/p>\n Colombian research groups Fundaci\u00f3n Ideas para la Paz<\/a> and Insight Crime<\/a> report that ever more former fighters are dissatisfied with the FARC\u2019s reincarnation as a political party<\/a>. Up to 3,000 guerrillas \u2013 one-quarter of the roughly 12,000 demobilized after the peace accord \u2013 have re-armed alongside their former comrades.<\/p>\n Others have joined the ELN<\/a>, which has doubled in size since the FARC\u2019s disarmament<\/a>.<\/p>\n January\u2019s car bombing was a show of force.<\/p>\n Colombia\u2019s tense border<\/strong><\/p>\n The attack likely snuffs out any chance of a peace deal with the ELN<\/a>, which Colombia\u2019s government has pursued for years.<\/p>\n The ELN is primarily active along the Colombia-Venezuela border. If Colombia\u2019s government cracks down on the group, violence could escalate quickly.<\/p>\n Venezuela\u2019s Nicol\u00e1s Maduro is in a power struggle<\/a> to save his embattled presidency, and the U.S. has threatened military intervention. That would probably involve using Colombian territory as an operations base<\/a>.<\/p>\n Colombia\u2019s border region is a tinderbox of geopolitical tension<\/a>. A flare-up with the ELN may be the spark that sets it off. Alexander L Fattal<\/a>, Assistant Professor, Pennsylvania State University, Departments of Film-Video and Media Studies and Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/257276\/original\/file-20190205-86195-1v1k4yt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip\")
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