Bombay Durpun - Key Colombia guerrilla group backs pact to fight US, commander tells AFP

"If it's to defend the homeland against foreign aggression, we'll join the fight," ELN leader Antonio Garcia told AFP, responding to calls for factions to unite.

President Donald Trump, after ousting Nicolas Maduro as president in neighboring Venezuela, has suggested US forces may train their guns on targets in Colombia next.

Trump has argued Colombia -- the world's largest producer of cocaine -- is not doing enough to stop drug trafficking to the United States.

Ostensibly a leftist insurgent force, the 6,000-person-strong ELN doubles as one of Latin America's most powerful drug-trafficking organizations.

It controls a swath of the Colombia-Venezuela border region and, before the ouster of Maduro, had close ties to Caracas.

Colombian intelligence sources allege that Garcia himself lived in Venezuela until recently.

After Maduro was toppled by US forces, many guerrilla leaders are believed to have returned to Colombia.

- United front -

Other Colombian guerrilla groups have reacted angrily to Maduro's removal from power, claiming a US colonialist plot.

Ivan Mordisco, Colombia's most wanted rebel, who leads his own dissident group, has called for a unity pact to repel the United States.

"We know we have had our differences in the past... but today we are facing a common enemy" in the United States, said Mordisco, leader of the remnants of the dissolved FARC armed movement, also thought to have rear bases in Venezuela.

"We summon you urgently to a summit of insurgent commanders from Colombia and all over our America," he said, in a video sent to media.

"Let us forge a great insurgent front to drive back our enemies."

In a message from hiding, Garcia told AFP that his group would be willing to fight US forces.

The ELN "does what it must at each stage of the struggle," he said.

Colombia's Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez has said guerrillas seek unity because "the threat of lethal action" against them is now greater.

Under intense pressure from Washington and after a series of personal spats with Trump, Colombia's president Gustavo Petro has agreed to "joint action" against the ELN and other drug smugglers.

Trump had once told Petro -- himself a former guerrilla -- to "watch his ass" and hit the Colombian president and his family with sanctions.

But after an ice-breaking phone call, Trump will host him at the White House in February.

Colombia accuses the ELN of launching attacks and kidnappings of Colombian soldiers and retreating to rear-base locations in Venezuela.

Attacks on ground targets in Colombia would signal a broadening of Trump's military operations against alleged drug traffickers.

Since September, US forces are believed to have killed more than 100 people in strikes on alleged trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Pacific.

Colombia and Venezuela share a porous 2,200-kilometer (1,400-mile) border where various armed groups vie for control of the profits from drug trafficking, illegal mining, and smuggling.

Washington and Bogota have enjoyed security cooperation for decades, but ties have deteriorated since Trump began his second term last January.

H.Majumdar--BD