Colombia risked reliving the painful images of the attack on the Cali air base last August. This Saturday, the authorities in Tunja, capital of the department of Boyacá, in the center of the country, found a truck with 24 homemade explosives, known in the country as cylindrical bombs or tatucos, the same ones used by a dissident group of the extinct FARC for the attack in Colombia’s third largest city. Unlike what happened in Cali, they managed to control the situation: after evacuating their neighbors, they carried out a controlled explosion of the bombs which, although it sparked fear in the city of around 200,000 inhabitants and caused some damage, prevented what was apparently an attack against the Bolívar battalion.
President Gustavo Petro confirmed that it was a failed attack on military installations. “The attack that was supposed to be carried out against the military installations of the Gustavo Rojas Pinilla battalion in Tunja, in the center of the country, was neutralized. The civilian and military population was evacuated in time. Zero casualties,” he wrote on his popular X account.
The planned attack against the military installations of the Gustavo Rojas Pinilla battalion in Tunja, in the center of the country, was neutralized. The civilian and military population was evacuated in time. Zero victims
Don’t let your guard down and don’t hit drug traffickers where they want…
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) November 8, 2025
In the early hours of Saturday, residents of the Prados de Alcalá neighborhood informed the authorities of the presence of an abandoned vehicle on the road. “The vehicle has been located, the citizens of the Prados de Alcalá and El Dorado neighborhoods have been evacuated,” the commander of the city police, Colonel Javier Gustavo Lemus, explained in statements to the media. The officer explained that the police also informed the military directors of the so-called Military Canton of Lieutenant Colonel Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, which occupies a large wooded area in the eastern part of the city, near the transport terminal.
So far there is no information on who is responsible for the failed attack or any further damage. The situation is particularly strange since Tunja, and Boyacá in general, are far from the areas of presence of the various Colombian armed groups.
