BOGOTA -- Colombia's civil war heated up in the country's northern provinces Thursday after the government suspended the peace process with leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries claimed credit for thwarting rebel demands.

A car bomb explosion late Thursday in Gramaloto, some 650 kilometers (404 miles) Northeast of Bogota, left two people dead. It followed a bombing in the village of San Francisco, 460 kilometers (286 miles) northwest of the capital, in which three children were killed and 35 people injured, AFP reported.

Authorities blamed both attacks on Colombia's second-largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army. President Andres Pastrana broke off talks with the leftist group.

Antioquia department police chief Colonel Guillermo Aranda said a unit of the ELN, a 4,500-strong group, had triggered a dynamite blast at San Francisco and fired on the police station and nearby homes.

"We condemn this type of act and reiterate that for dialogue there must be a willingness to make peace," said Pastrana, whose surprise decision to end months of unsuccessful peace talks with the ELN prompted fears of renewed violence.

U.S. State Department official Phillip Chicola was doubtful Thursday that the suspension of talks would have any significant impact on the Panorama of violence for the nation.

"Let's be frank," said Chicola, who is director of Andean affairs at the bureau of western hemisphere affairs, during a visit Thursday to Bogota. "None of the armed groups, whether it be the ELN, the FARC or the paramilitaries, has shown any will to reduce their attacks and aggression against the Colombian people in the past months or years.

"The bad news is that the process that might lead to fewer attacks has gone off track -- hopefully only temporarily -- but the truth is that the ELN has done nothing so far to improve objective conditions that confront the Colombian people," Chicola added.

The leadership of the ELN had no immediate reaction to the police claim it was responsible for the blast, but said Pastrana's cancellation of the talks reaffirmed "his policy of delays and unfulfilled agreements," and accused him of being allied with extreme right-wing elements.

Meanwhile, right-wing paramilitaries of the united self-defense forces of Colombia (AUC) claimed credit Thursday for thwarting the ELN's demands for a demilitarized zone in Northern Colombia as a condition of peace talks.

In a statement, leaders of the Paramilitary Group said the rebels should negotiate directly with them. "You must accept that the state cannot clear a territory where it is not present. The war there is just between the ELN and the AUC until recently, when we left you defeated," the group said.