On February 7, 2003, a car containing 200 kilograms of explosives blew up in the parking garage of the exclusive El Nogal social club in one of Bogotá’s most upscale neighborhoods. The blast killed 36 and wounded more than 200. No one claimed responsibility for what was Colombia’s worst terrorist attack in over ten years in its decades-long internal war. Yet, the government soon declared that it had evidence linking the attack to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country’s oldest and largest guerrilla insurgency.

The rebels had apparently recruited a young squash champion, John Freddy Arellán, to join the club as a squash instructor. While it is not clear whether Arellán was willingly carrying out the terrorist attack, he drove the car into the garage on that fateful day. A FARC operative detonated the bomb remotely while Arellán was still inside; Arellán and his uncle, Oswaldo Arellán perished in the explosion and the operative was captured three weeks later. The El Nogal bombings shook the nation’s elites, who had become accustomed to living largely normal lives despite the low-level guerrilla presence that had existed for more than forty years. But the violent and brazen blast made it appear as though no place was safe from the guerrillas’ reach.