March 7, 2008

Another FARCing Rebel Taken Single-Handedly

Hatched by Dafydd

Ivan Rios, yet another high-ranking leader of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) was evidently just killed, in this case by his own bodyguard:

A top rebel leader was killed by his own chief of security, who gave Colombian troops the leader's severed hand as proof, the defense minister said Friday. Ivan Rios was the second top rebel killed in a week, a major setback for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the country's largest rebel force.

Just a few days ago, as we reported, FARC number two Raul Reyes was slain, slightly inside Ecuador, by Colombian forces in a cross-border airstrike.

Ivan Rios was the first high-ranking, articulate and bright and clean and nice-looking FARC terrorist Colombia has gotten, and only the second top leader period:

The 46-year-old Rios became known across Colombia as one of the rebels' main negotiators in failed peace talks that ended in 2002. Unlike the FARC's mostly peasant leadership, he was a former university student who engaged journalists and foreign envoys in political and economic discussions.

"He was the youngest member of the secretariat. He was very important to the rebels," said Alfredo Rangel of the Bogota-based think tank Security and Democracy. "This shows the army is capable of taking down the rebels' most important pillars and that any of the leaders can fall at any time...."

[Rios] commanded the FARC's central bloc, which operates throughout Colombia's northwestern coffee region. [No wonder they had a hard time handling Rios... he was too jittery to stay in one spot too long.] Security forces say he frequently accompanied the FARC's senior leader, Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda, in recent years.

No, I didn't make up that nickname.

They're dropping like thieves. Sure as shootin', some Colombian special forces sniper will shortly sureshoot Sureshot Marulanda.

I don't know why "Rojas" -- Rios' bodyguard -- killed him; there are many possible reasons:

Thursday night, [Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos] said, a guerrilla known as Rojas came to the troops with Rios' severed right hand, laptop computer and ID, saying he had killed his boss three days earlier. [Was the severed right hand clutching the ID card, or what it still busily typing away at the laptop?]

It was unclear what motivated the killing, but Santos said it was to "relieve the military pressure" because the rebels were "surrounded, without supplies and without communication."

The U.S. State Department has a bounty of $5 million for Rios' capture.

Maybe for the money, maybe to appease Colombia and get them to back away from the rest of the frightened "rebels." But whatever Red's motivation, I think we should all give him a big -- round of applause.

(Yeah, I know what you thought I was about to say, you morbid creatures!)

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 7, 2008, at the time of 11:52 PM

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The following hissed in response by: hunter

If Colombians can wind up FARC and crush it, it will be a great victory for freedom.

The above hissed in response by: hunter [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 8, 2008 6:52 PM

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