Neiva's Mayor Cielo Gonzalez talks to reporters after escaping an assassination attempt by a car bomb in Neiva yesterday. - Reuters

BOGOTA (Reuters):

A Colombian city mayor who was threatened by guerrillas narrowly escaped an assassination attempt yesterday when rebels exploded a car bomb and wounded eight people near a radio station where she was speaking.

Neiva Mayor Cielo Gonzalez was broadcasting a programme when herbodyguards noticed a suspicious car parked outside and ordered it removed. But the car exploded on a timer device as it was being towed away, police said.

Urban bombings are less common since President Alvaro Uribe began a U.S.-backed campaign to combat the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC and the cocaine trade that fuels Latin America's oldest guerrilla war.

"Everything in the investigation points to an assassination attempt on the mayor of Neiva," Police Col. Miguel Angel Bojaca said. "We have eight people wounded in the blast."

Local television showed images taken minutes after the blast of a bus in flames near the wrecked car, and wounded motorcycle drivers lying in debris in Neiva, about 186 miles (300 km) south of the capital Bogota.