BOGOTA - Colombia's FARC terrorist group suffered its second major loss in the last year as the Colombian Armed Forces dispatched its top terrorist commander Alfonso Cano on Friday, according to government and military officials.
Cano, whose real name was Guillermo León Sáenz, was killed on Friday, hours after his nearby camp was bombed by Colombian Armed Forces, who had been pursuing him relentlessly after bringing down two of his personal security rings earlier this year.
Intelligence about the top terrorist had begun to flow after earlier captures of second tier FARC terrorists. On July 17, soldiers captured a woman known as “Araceli,” who commanded the FARC's 66th Front in Páez, a municipality of the department of Cauca.
According to Gen. Henry William Torres Escalante, commander of the Colombian Army's Ninth Brigade, Araceli was in charge of fundraising for the FARC’s terrorist activities, the Spanish daily El Mundo reported. “She obtained funding in Europe to perpetrate terrorist acts in the country,” the general said.
According to the Colombian daily El Espectador, Colombia's two main terrorist groups, the FARC and the National Liberation Army (ELN) lost 21,500 members during President Uribe's two terms.
The FARC has been reduced from 25,000 members eight years ago to 8,000 today, while the ELN has been diminished from 7,000 to 2,500.
General Freddy Padilla de León, Commander of Colombian Armed Forces, told El Espectador, “[The FARC] was very powerful [and used] to cover whole areas of the nation, as 300 municipalities were influenced by them." Padilla de León predicted back in July that, "[We can] destroy them, and we are on our way to destroying them.”
The death Friday of FARC's number one leader was celebrated by President Juan Manuel Santos as "the hardest blow to this organization in its entire history," and called for the remaining members to turn themselves in: "I want to send a message to each and every member of this organization: demobilize. Because if you don't, as we've said so many times and as we've shown, you will end up in jail or in a tomb," Santos said in an address to the nation.
Cano, 63, was killed by Colombian troops in a remote area of the southwestern state of Cauca along with four other FARC terrorists. According to military officials, Cano evidently knew that the military was getting close, as he had shaved his trademark beard and was found without the thick glasses that he was known to wear. Officials said Cano was positively identified by his fingerprints.
According to President Santos, "people inside the FARC" had provided some of the intelligence needed to locate Cano. When Cano was killed, Colombian intelligence recovered seven computers and 39 thumb drives, as well as a large amount of cash in currencies that included dollars, euros and Colombian pesos, said Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon.
Speculation as to who might replace Cano at the top of the FARC hierarchy was said to be either of the two terrorists known as Ivan Marquez or Timochenko, both currently members of the FARC secretariat.
The upper echelon of the FARC hierarchy has suffered a series of blows since March of 2008, when its foreign minister, Raul Reyes, was killed while hiding out inside the border of Ecuador. The operation yielded a treasure trove of intelligence from computers and digital storage devices that has continued to lead authorities to other FARC terrorists, and more importantly, provided the evidence needed to cut off financial, territorial and logistical help from Venezuela and Ecuador, as well as fundraising and propaganda support from Europe.
In the same month, one of the FARC's co-founders, Manuel Marulanda, died of a heart attack. It was Cano, known as the FARC's chief "ideologist," who was then named to succeed him.
A number of top terrorist commanders were killed shortly after, and mass desertions of lower and midlevel soldiers of the terrorist group soon followed.
But the most devastating loss came in July of 2008, as Colombian commandos posing as members of a friendly left-wing NGO were able to rescue former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, three U.S. military contractors and 11 others in a flawless operation known as Operation Checkmate.
Since Santos took office in August of 2010, he has received some criticism for not continuing the aggressive counterterrorist tactics of the Uribe administration, but he was buoyed by the death of top FARC terrorist "Mono Jojoy." Soon after, Santos began an aggressive pursuit of Cano, who was reported to have barely escaped Colombian Armed Forces several times in recent months.
When Santos was elected, Cano had released several videos asking the new president to enter into negotiations. But Santos insisted on a gesture of peace first, such as a stop to all kidnappings. But the terrorist group continued the practice, even kidnapping four Chinese oil workers in June, as well as two committing two terrorist attacks in the last month that killed more than 20 soldiers.
