Berliner Tageblatt - Security forces taken hostage by Colombian guerillas released: AFP

Around noon on Saturday, residents of the community of La Hacienda in the department of Cauca told the detainees that they were free to go.

The men, held since Thursday, collected their riot gear and left along a dirt road, escorted by local residents, AFP saw.

They headed toward the nearby town of El Plateado, where a commission from the state Ombudsman's Office was waiting for them.

The soldiers were detained Thursday after a day of clashes between residents and security forces, part of a government military operation aimed at ending drug-related violence in a region with one of the highest concentrations of coca crops in Colombia.

The government said the officers were being held by a dissident FARC guerrilla group.

As he left La Hacienda, Major Nilson Bedoya, the soldier in the group, said that throughout the ordeal he couldn't help but think of his family.

"My family, my wife, my son, who are waiting for me at home," he said in an agitated voice, as he carried his gear on his shoulder.

Earlier Saturday, Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez in an interview with W Radio threatened to use "the legitimate force of the state" to have the troops released.

Sanchez and other representatives of the government of leftist President Gustavo Petro will meet Saturday with residents of the departmental capital, Popayan, to listen to the locals.

Officials said that on Thursday, guerillas and members of the public confronted and overwhelmed security services who were trying to reestablish state control in two municipalities.

Government images showed gangs pelting a flaming armored vehicle with rocks, and riot police detonating smoke grenades amid a running gun battle.

Petro blamed a FARC renegade faction known as the Central General Staff (EMC), accusing it of "using the civilian population" to attack troops.

The kidnappings were a major embarrassment -- and a stern challenge -- for Colombia's government, which is struggling with its worst unrest in a decade involving spasms of violence in several parts of the country.

Since October, Bogota has been trying to retake control of parts of Cauca from the EMC.

Petro's government is proposing an ambitious crop substitution program to combat the drug trafficking economy, a strategy that locals have denounced as a campaign of "forced eradication" of coca crops.

"We will continue to work for these lands so that people can have a better future," said Bedoya, the soldier. "The peasants were sold the idea that we are their enemies, but we are their best allies," he added.

G.Schulte--BTB