Cali (Colombia) (AFP) - Colombia was rocked by a string of 24 coordinated bomb and gun attacks that killed at least seven people across the country’s southwest Tuesday, deepening a security crisis roiling the Andean nation.

Attackers struck targets in Cali – the country’s third-largest city – and several nearby towns, hitting police posts, municipal buildings and civilian targets.

National Police chief Carlos Fernando Triana said assailants – suspected to be a local guerrilla group – had attacked using car bombs, motorcycle bombs, rifle fire and a suspected drone.

“There are two police officers dead, and a number of members of the public are also dead,” he said. Police later put the toll at seven dead and 28 more injured.

In Cali and the towns of Villa Rica, Guachinte and Corinto, AFP journalists witnessed the tangled wreckage of vehicle bombs surrounded by scorched debris and damaged buildings.

The attacks came days after a brazen attempted assassination of a presidential candidate in Bogota that has put the country on edge.

Many Colombians are now fearful of a return to the violence of the 1980s and 1990s, when cartel attacks, guerrilla violence and political assassinations were commonplace.

Interior Minister Armando Benedetti said the government had received unverified “proof” of possible guerrilla involvement in the attack on Senator Miguel Uribe.

- ‘Well-coordinated offensive’ -

In the town of Corinto, resident Luz Amparo was at home when the blast gutted her bakery Tuesday.

“We thought it was an earthquake,” she told AFP. “My husband said ‘no, they are shooting.’”

Her phone began to ring off the hook and she went to check on her store. As she rounded the corner, the neighbors began to look in her direction.

“Everything was leveled,” she said.

Police and experts blamed the attacks on a dissident faction of the once-powerful FARC guerrilla group.

Security expert Elizabeth Dickinson of the International Crisis Group said the attacks were likely the work of a group known as the Central General Staff (EMC).

“This is a particularly well-coordinated offensive. It really demonstrates the capacity that the group has built” she told AFP.

“And I think very alarmingly it demonstrates their ability to conduct operations in the metropolitan area of Cali.”

Efforts by President Gustavo Petro to reach a peace deal with the EMC and other armed groups have repeatedly failed.

Dickinson said the group may be trying to stop an ongoing military operation that is reported to have injured or killed the group’s veteran leader, known as “Ivan Mordisco.”

“They are trying to raise the cost of that military initiative for the government,” said Dickinson.

In a statement on Tuesday, the EMC warned the public to stay away from military and police installations, but stopped short of claiming responsibility.

The attacks come three days after conservative senator Uribe, 39, was shot twice in the head at close range by an alleged hitman while campaigning in the capital.

A 15-year-old suspect pleaded “not guilty” on Tuesday to carrying out the attempted assassination. The government believes he was a hired gun.

That attack has stunned Colombians, prompted speculation about who was responsible and raised questions about the president’s response.

Petro has taken to social media to speculate that the hit was ordered by an international “mafia” and to claim that Uribe’s security detail was suspiciously reduced the day he was shot.