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Caribbean-Latin America

Colombia kills rebel accused of leading attacks on U.S.-owned oil pipeline

2007-10-27

BOGOTA, Colombia: A senior rebel commander, accused of leading attacks on a U.S.-owned oil pipeline and terrorizing residents along Colombia's Caribbean coast, was killed in combat, the defense minister said Thursday. Gustavo Rueda, head of the 37th Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was killed Wednesday night in the isolated Montes de Maria mountain range, defense minister Juan Manuel Santos said. And no virgins, either! At least 18 other guerrillas were killed and four more captured during the fighting, which capped more than six months of intelligence work, Santos said. There were no reports of military casualties. Rueda, better known by his nom de guerre Martin Caballero, was notorious for having ordered the kidnapping of Colombia's current foreign minister, who escaped in December after six years in rebel captivity. The rebel leader is the third high-priority target taken out by the U.S.-backed military in the past two months. On Sept. 1 troops killed in combat Tomas Medina Caracas, a FARC member who was responsible for collecting a "war tax" on cocaine shipments that passed through eastern Colombia. A week later, the military captured cartel boss Diego Montoya, who was listed on the FBI's 10 most wanted list. "Say allo to our leetle friend!" Rueda's 37th front has been one of the most battered since President Alvaro Uribe took office in 2002. After increasing troop levels by 25 percent, government forces cut the guerrilla unit off from the FARC's main base in southern Colombia. Santos said that at the front's height in 2002, some 500 troops under Rueda's command carried out dozens of bombings of the 780-kilometer (480-mile) Cano Limon pipeline, which is jointly owned by state oil firm Ecopetrol and U.S. company Occidental Petroleum Inc. Rueda is also believed to have masterminded dozens of kidnappings for ransom used by the FARC to finance its half-century-old insurgency. "This is a clear demonstration that the guerrillas can indeed be defeated militarily," said Foreign Minister Fernando Araujo, who was kidnapped on Rueda's orders in Cartagena in 2000. Araujo said he was held in the guerrilla chief's jungle camp for the final two years of his kidnapping before taking advantage of a surprise raid last Christmas to flee his captors. In March, authorities announced a US$310,000 (€216,000) bounty for information leading to Rueda's capture or elimination. Rueda joined the FARC 25 years ago after having joined the Communist party as a student in the northern town of Barrancabermeja, Santos said. From his base in the Montes de Maria, he planned attacks against the coastal cities of Barranquilla and Cartagena.

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Caribbean-Latin America

'Lord of War' captured, faces extradition to US

2007-09-11

He was nicknamed the Lord of War, a ruthless Colombian cocaine baron blamed for the death of 1,500 people. His photo appeared alongside Osama bin Laden in the FBI Top 10 Most Wanted. But yesterday morning Diego Montoya was in plastic handcuffs, after soldiers found him cowering behind a bush dressed only in his T-shirt and underpants. "I lost," was said to be the laconic comment of one of the world's most wanted drug traffickers. Montoya was captured by an elite army unit during a pre-dawn raid on a farm where his mother and uncle were staying, in Valle del Cauca province. He offered to bribe troops $5 million - the same amount as the US bounty on his head - to let him go. Nobody took him up on it. He offered to bribe troops $5 million (£2.5 million) - the same amount as the US bounty on his head - to let him go, said Juan Manuel Santos, the Colombian defence minister. Nobody took him up on it. He faces extradition to the United States within two months to stand trial on charges of leading the Norte del Valle cartel, considered Colombia’s most dangerous drug trafficking organisation, and of shipping hundreds of tons of cocaine to the United States and Europe. Lots more at the link

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Latin America

Colombian terrorists seek combat jets

2003-10-22

From Geostrategy-Direct, requires subscription... A unit of the terrorist group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, is attempting to purchase combat aircraft and helicopters to protect drug cartels, according to Brazil’s intelligence service. That will make things interesting, and will up the ante, too. The FARC 23rd Front, which controls exit routes used by the drug cartel headed by Diego Montoya Sanches, is attempting to purchase one combat aircraft and three light helicopters on the international black market, the Brazilian Internet newspaper O Estado de Sao Paulo reported last week. The newspaper stated that a British mercenary arrested in Dallas in August said he had been hired to buy a jet or turboprop aircraft for the FARC. I wonder how long they think that they could keep the a/c hidden before it is hit on the ground or blown out of the sky. The mercenary, David Brian Tomkins, was in Colombia in May and June and then in Rio in July. He also attempted to buy three light helicopters that could be outfitted with rockets, machine guns and grenade launchers. That should bring Blackhawks and other heavy iron in like flies on s--t to stomp them out.

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