Colombian soldiers found a bag containing explosives and bomb-making materials outside President Alvaro Uribe's ranch in the countryside, a presidential spokesman said on Saturday.

The C4 explosives, detonator cords and other bomb-making materials were found Friday after a neighbor reported a suspicious bag near a road on which Uribe used to jog, the spokesman said.

Uribe left the ranch, 500 km northwest of Bogota, on Saturday morning after spending the night there.

Since taking office in 2002, the president has been the target of several assassination attempts, including a rocket attack during his inauguration and an attack against his motorcade.

He is running for re-election next year on promises of continuing his offensive against rebels.

Colombia has been locked in a four-decade civil war, the longest in Latin America, in which government forces, leftist guerrillas and far-right paramilitaries fight one another. The conflict kills more than 3,000 people annually.

Source: Xinhua