Leftist guerrillas are holding an American and a British journalist on assignment for the Los Angeles Times in eastern Colombia, a region the rebels said in a statement today had been “declared a war zone by the North American government and the Colombian state.” The two freelance journalists with years of experience working in Colombia’s most violent areas — Ruth Morris, a British national with U.S. residency status, and Scott Dalton, an American — were stopped Tuesday in Arauca province by members of the National Liberation Army (ELN). The rebel statement said the two would be released “when merited by political and military conditions.” Full Story