At least 20 leftist rebels were killed in Colombia after the military launched bombing strikes against their camp in Narino province, near the border with Ecuador, the army announced late Sunday.

The rebels belonged to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's largest guerrilla group, according to General Leonardo Barrero, a local military commander.

Negotiators for the Colombian government of President Juan Manuel Santos and leftist FARC rebels meet in Havana Monday for talks aimed at ending Latin America's longest-running insurgency.

Chief government negotiator Humberto de la Calle said he believed this is "the defining moment" to reach a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrillas, as both sides have agreed that talks "must end with a final agreement on the conflict."

Six Colombian police officers were killed Monday in an attack blamed on leftist FARC guerrillas, regional police sources told AFP.

The officers were gunned down in the southwestern department of Cauca between the towns of Puerto Tejada and Villarrica, according to local police, who blamed the assault on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Colombia's government and leftist FARC rebels Thursday formally launched peace talks in Norway aimed at ending nearly five decades of a conflict that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

Norway, followed by Cuba, is hosting the first direct talks between the two sides in 10 years.

Negotiators for Colombia's government and leftist FARC rebels headed to Norway on Tuesday for peace talks aimed at ending the longest insurgency in Latin America, officials said.

The FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) team left from Cuba, according to Carlos Lozano, head of Colombia's Communist party. The government side departed from the Colombian capital Bogota.

A U.S. federal court sentenced a Lebanese man to 12 years in prison Thursday for conspiring to provide Colombia's leftist FARC rebels with military-grade weapons in exchange for over a ton of cocaine.

Jamal Youssef, 54, pleaded guilty in May to one count of providing material support to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Latin America's oldest insurgent group.

Talks between Colombia's government and the leftist FARC rebels -- aimed at ending one of Latin America's oldest conflicts -- are set to begin on October 15, the group said Monday.

The statement sent to reporters in Havana, Cuba, where the parties met to negotiate the terms of the peace talks also said "the national government and the FARC ... will make a public announcement on October 17 in the city of Oslo, Norway."

A strong magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck in the Andes Mountains of south-west Colombia on Sunday, Colombian and U.S. earthquake monitoring services reported.

The quake struck at 1631 GMT some 20 kilometers east of the Colombian town of La Vega and 326 kilometers north-east of Quito, Ecuador, said the U.S. Geological Service, which monitors earthquakes worldwide.

Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Treasury Neal Steven Wolin is expected to arrive in Beirut in the coming two days where he will meet senior Lebanese officials, An Nahar newspaper reported on Monday.

Wolin will seek to reiterate his country's decision to control individual cases of financial deception.

Pope Benedict XVI expressed his support Sunday for a budding "important dialogue" between the government of Colombia and FARC rebels to end Latin America's oldest armed conflict.

May "those who have joined this initiative be guided by the desire for forgiving and reconciliation in the sincere search for the common good", he said in a message to the faithful written in Spanish.