Leaders of the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have given orders to assassinate President Alvaro Uribe, said Defense Minister Jorge Alberto Uribe Thursday.

"There is information from multiple sources indicating that theFARC not only have the plan they have had since the president opted to seek office, but also have ordered its units to push hardto try to kill him," the minister told reporters.

Alvaro Uribe, who has been president since August 7, 2002, has long been the target of FARC attacks. In April 2002 when he was onhis presidential campaign trail in Barranquilla, capital of Atalantico state, a car-bomb exploded just a few meters away from him.

FARC is the largest insurgent group in Colombia with up to 17,000 combatants across the country.

Colombia has been plagued by a four-decade civil war, in which leftist rebels, far-right paramilitaries and government troops fight each other, killing about 3,500 people every year.

Source: Xinhua