Colombian authorities said Tuesday they planned to investigate alleged sexual abuses of children by U.S. contractors and military staff.

The claims, published in February by historian Renan Vega in a report on talks between the government and leftist FARC guerrillas in Cuba, claimed that 53 minors were sexually abused by U.S. troops in the center of the South American country.

The United States will provide $5 million for demining activities over the next two years in Colombia, which is trying to thrash out a historic peace deal with the FARC guerrillas, officials said Monday.

Antony Blinken, a U.S. deputy secretary of state, made the announcement on a visit that included talks with Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin.

Authorities in Colombia have arrested 298 people in a nationwide operation against child sex offenders, prosecutors said Tuesday.

More than 1,180 arrest warrants were issued for the April 20-21 operation, and 298 people have been detained so far, the office of the country's top prosecutor said.

The United States is committed to the peace process being negotiated between the Colombian government and FARC guerrillas and will do everything in its power to help talks succeed, Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday.

His comments come a day after peace negotiators traded accusations over a clash that left 11 soldiers and two rebels dead last week.

Peace negotiators from the Colombian government and FARC guerrillas traded accusations Monday over a clash that left 11 soldiers dead last week, but vowed to continue the two-year-old peace process.

Also Monday President Juan Manuel Santos was booed by protesters for the second time in as many days over his handling of the peace process.

Two suspected FARC guerrillas have been killed in central Colombia, officials said, days after President Juan Manuel Santos lifted a suspension of air strikes on the Marxist rebels.

Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon said the two suspected members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) died in an operation to destroy an explosives factory on Saturday in the Vistahermosa region.

The United States branded a FARC attack that killed 11 Colombian soldiers "brutal" Friday and accused the Marxist guerrillas of violating their unilateral ceasefire.

The attack on Tuesday-Wednesday came as the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are in peace talks that have been under way in Havana since November 2012 in a bid to end more than five decades of conflict that have killed over 200,000 people.

The death toll from an attack blamed on Colombia's leftist FARC guerrillas has risen to 11 soldiers after another died of his wounds, the army said Thursday.

The nighttime attack Tuesday in the western rebel bastion of Cauca -- the latest setback for the two-year-old peace process aimed at ending the five-decade conflict -- also left two rebels dead, the army said.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos lifted a suspension of air strikes against the FARC after the Marxist guerrillas were suspected in the killing of 10 soldiers in a pre-dawn attack Wednesday.

The attack in western Colombia, which also left 20 soldiers wounded, was the deadliest since the start of peace talks more than two years ago, officials said.

Suspected FARC guerrillas killed 10 soldiers and injured 20 others in a pre-dawn attack in western Colombia on Wednesday prompting President Juan Manuel Santos to order a resumption of air strikes against the rebels.

The attack in a remote mountainous area in Cauca province was one of the deadliest since the government opened peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Havana in November 2012.