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Recent Appearances... Rantburg

Home Front: Politix
MSNBC host apologizes after guest said 'natural conclusion' of Trump's rhetoric could lead to an 'extermination' of Latinos
2019-08-08
[FOXNEWS] MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace issued an apology Tuesday evening over remarks made during a panel discussion stemming from a guest's suggestion that President Trump has been "talking about exterminating Latinos."

On Monday, Wallace led a conversation where USA Today opinion columnist Raul Reyes slammed Trump's remarks condemning white supremacy since he had "basically declared open season on Latinos" during his entire presidency.

He then listed examples of Trump's rhetoric towards Latinos and illegal immigrants colonists like describing the caravan that was heading to the U.S. southern border as an "infestation."

"What do you do with an infestation? With an infestation, the natural conclusion is to attempt an extermination," Reyes said. "So, to me, there’s very little distinction between his inciting this violence and the fact it’s now happening."
Related:
MSNBC: 2019-08-06 Dem Rep. Escobar: Trump ‘Not Welcome’ in El Paso While We’re in Mourning
MSNBC: 2019-08-03 ‘I Want Him Back’; Matthews Declares Obama ‘Still Thrilling to Me,’ Dems Need to Step Up
MSNBC: 2019-07-30 Ilhan Omar shares tweet mocking, endorsing violence, beating of Rand Paul
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Caribbean-Latin America
FARC Describes U.S., Colombia Targeting of Rebel Leaders as 'Crimes'
2014-01-08
[An Nahar] Colombia's largest guerrilla group Tuesday condemned a secret U.S.-Colombian program to target and kill rebel leaders as "crimes" in violation of national illusory sovereignty.

The Washington Post disclosed the intelligence-sharing program in a report last month that credited it with a role in the killing in 2008 of longtime guerrilla leader Raul Reyes, who died in a Colombian Arclight airstrike and raid on a rebel camp in Ecuador.

Reyes was the number two leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
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Caribbean-Latin America
CIA Helped Colombia Hunt and Kill FARC Leaders
2013-12-23
[An Nahar] Colombia's battle against leftist FARC guerrillas has been secretly aided by a U.S. intelligence program that helped government forces hunt down and assassinate rebel leaders, the Washington Post reported Sunday.

The secret CIA program -- separate from the $9 billion U.S. aid package dubbed Plan Colombia, which launched in 2000 -- was initially authorized by president George W. Bush around the same time.

President Barack Obama
We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us...
has continued the assistance, the Post reported, citing its interviews with more than 30 current and former officials from both the United States and Colombia.

The covert program works in two ways: the U.S. provides intelligence to help locate the FARC leaders, and it furnishes a special GPS guidance kit that helps convert standard bombs into highly-precise smart bombs.

It was thanks to U.S. information that the FARC number two, Raul Reyes, was found and killed in 2008, the report said, noting that the CIA program had helped Colombia eliminate "at least two dozen rebel leaders".

The Reyes operation was carried out on March 1, 2008, in neighboring Ecuador.

"To conduct an Arclight airstrike meant a Colombian pilot flying a Colombian plane would hit the camp using a U.S.-made bomb with a CIA-controlled brain," the Post said, adding that the United States justified the incursion in another sovereign country's territory as self-defense for Colombia.
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Caribbean-Latin America
New FARC Chief Says Willing to Negotiate with Colombia Leader
2012-01-11
[An Nahar] Colombia's Marxist FARC guerrillas said Monday they were willing to negotiate with President Juan Manuel Santos, in a statement signed by the group's new leader, named just two months ago.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
FARC or FARC-EP, is either a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary guerrilla organization or a narco mob based in Colombia. It claims to represent the rural poor in a struggle against Colombia's wealthier classes, and opposes United States influence in Colombia, neo-imperialism, monopolization of natural resources by multinational corporations, and the usual raft of complaints. It funds itself principally through ransom kidnappings, taxation of the drug trade, extortion, shakedowns, and donations. It has lately begun calling itself Bolivarian and is greatly admired by Venezuela's President-for-Life Chavez, who seemingly fantasizes about living in the woods and kidnapping people himself. He provides FARC with safe areas along the border.
 said there are "issues we are interested in dealing with at a hypothetical negotiating table," in a statement from FARC chief Timoleon 'Timochenko' Jimenez posted on a rebel website.

"Before the nation, (we hope) to address privatizations, deregulation, the absolute freedom of trade and investment, environmental degradation, democracy in a market economy, and military policy," Jimenez said.

The FARC is Colombia's oldest and largest guerrilla force, believed to have 8,000 members, and has been at war with the government since its launch in 1964.

The group's last leader, Alfonso Cano, was killed in an army raid in early November.

The FARC has suffered serious losses since 2008, when its number two Raul Reyes died during a Colombian army raid in Ecuadoran territory, and its historic leader, Manuel "Sure Shot" Marulanda Velez, died after a brief illness.
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Caribbean-Latin America
Colombia's FARC Rebels Execute Four Hostages
2011-11-27
[An Nahar] Colombia's FARC rebels have executed four hostages, just days after installing a new leader at the helm of Latin America's longest-running Death Eater group, the defense minister said Saturday.

"Four hostages, members of the security forces, have been killed," Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon told a presser, adding that their bullet-ridden bodies had been found on Saturday morning in the Solano region.

In his first message since taking over as leader of Colombia's main leftist guerrilla outfit, new FARC chief Timoleon Jimenez warned President Juan Manuel Santos on Sunday: "We all have to die."

Alfonso Cano, who had led the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
FARC or FARC-EP, is either a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary guerrilla organization or a narco mob based in Colombia. It claims to represent the rural poor in a struggle against Colombia's wealthier classes, and opposes United States influence in Colombia, neo-imperialism, monopolization of natural resources by multinational corporations, and the usual raft of complaints. It funds itself principally through ransom kidnappings, taxation of the drug trade, extortion, shakedowns, and donations. It has lately begun calling itself Bolivarian and is greatly admired by Venezuela's President-for-Life Chavez, who seemingly fantasizes about living in the woods and kidnapping people himself. He provides FARC with safe areas along the border.
 (FARC) since 2008, was bumped off in a November 4 firefight with Colombian government forces.

Santos said Thursday in Bogota that Jimenez, alias Timochenko, would share Cano's fate unless he gave his actions serious thought.

The FARC, believed to have 8,000 members, has been at war with the government since 1964. It began a campaign of kidnappings in the mid-1980s, seizing army hostages to serve as bargaining chips forFARC prisoners. By the late 1990s, civilians and politicians were also being snatched, winning the group greater notoriety.

Saturday's executions leave 14 police and soldiers still in FARC hands. Some of them have spent more than a decade in captivity.

The operation to kill Cano was the latest in a string of recent military victories in the government's quest to eradicate FARC, after years of unsuccessful attempts to find a negotiated solution.

The FARC lost its number two Raul Reyes during a Colombian army raid in Ecuadoran territory in 2008.

That same year, the FARC also lost Manuel "Sure Shot" Marulanda Velez, the reclusive 80-year-old rebel chief, who was last seen in 1982. He died after a brief undisclosed illness.

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Caribbean-Latin America
FARC files 'show ties to Chavez'
2011-05-12
[Al Jazeera] Colombian FARC guerrillas may have tried to assassinate rivals of Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, and trained his supporters in urban warfare, according to a report examining documents seized from a rebel camp.

The study of the files, obtained during a 2008 raid inside Ecuador, also showed that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
FARC or FARC-EP, is either a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary guerrilla organization or a narco mob based in Colombia. It claims to represent the rural poor in a struggle against Colombia's wealthier classes, and opposes United States influence in Colombia, neo-imperialism, monopolization of natural resources by multinational corporations, and the usual raft of complaints. It funds itself principally through ransom kidnappings, taxation of the drug trade, extortion, shakedowns, and donations. It has lately begun calling itself Bolivarian and is greatly admired by Venezuela's President-for-Life Chavez, who seemingly fantasizes about living in the woods and kidnapping people himself. He provides FARC with safe areas along the border.
 (FARC) contributed some $400,000 to the election campaign of Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador.

Venezuela's embassy in London questioned the authenticity of the documents published by the British-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), calling them a "dodgy dossier" that could be exploited to sabotage warming ties between the ideologically-opposed neighbours.

Correa dismissed the IISS findings as "absolutely false".

Accusations have been swirling since Colombian authorities captured computer hard drives belonging to Raul Reyes, a FARC leader, after he and other rebels were killed in an air raid three years ago.

Ronald K. Noble, the secretary general of Internpol, said in 2008 that Interpol's team of forensic experts discovered 'no evidence of modification, alteration, addition or deletion' in the user files of any of the seized hardware.

"Based on our careful and comprehensive forensic examination of each of the eight seized FARC computer exhibits and on consideration of all the evidence reviewed by our experts, Interpol concludes that there was no tampering with any data on the computer exhibits following their seizure on 1 March 2008 by Colombian authorities," Noble said.

'Authentic confirmation'
"A lot of this material has been travelling through the public domain one way or another over the last years but the utility of this dossier is it provides authentic confirmation from the FARC perspective," the IISS' Nigel Inkster told the Rooters news agency.

Colombia turned over the complete files to the IISS, an independent think tank, for study after they were confirmed to be genuine by Interpol.

The 2008 attack triggered a diplomatic dispute between Alvaro Uribe's conservative government in Colombia and both Ecuador and Venezuela, which escalated when Uribe confronted Chavez with what he said was evidence that Caracas had harboured and supported rebels.

Ties have improved dramatically since the election of Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia's new president, last August.

Venezuela has always disputed the alleged contents of the files seized in the raid. On Tuesday, its embassy in London said there was "serious doubt on the authenticity and validity of the information".

"This could become part of an aggressive propaganda tool against Venezuela to undermine progress in the region, precisely at a time when relations between Venezuela and Colombia have reached a level of stable cooperation and friendly dialogue," the embassy said in a statement.

According to the archives, the FARC responded to requests from Venezuela's intelligence services to provide urban warfare training to pro-Chavez groups when the socialist leader was feeling vulnerable following a brief 2002 coup.

"The archive offers tantalising but ultimately unproven suggestions that FARC may have undertaken liquidations of Chavez's political opponents," Inkster said in a presentation.

Complex ties
The documents also show Ecuador's Correa receiving campaign cash from the leftist rebels, although this did not necessarily translate into government favours after he was elected, the report said.

Correa adamantly denied receiving money from the guerrillas.

"I have never in my life met anyone from the FARC, and would never have accepted even 20 cents from an organisation like that," Correa told news hounds on Tuesday.

Colombia's government said it would not comment on the new study. "[Relations with Venezuela] are very good and the position of the Santos government is to strengthen them even more," vice president Angelino Garzon told Colombian radio.

The files reveal a complex relationship between Chavez and the FARC, with the charismatic Venezuelan supremo sometimes making promises to the group and then not following through.

According to the documents, Chavez met in person several times with leading FARC members.

The FARC is at its weakest in decades following the deaths of top commanders and desertions, prompted by a government crackdown aided by billions of dollars in US support.

But the rebels remain powerful in some areas of Colombia, helped by their involvement in the lucrative drug trade, kidnappings for ransom, and alliances with other gangs.
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Africa North
Rebels: Colombian female snipers fighting for Gadhafi
2011-04-14
Libyan rebels are receiving reports that female snipers from Colombia have joined other mercenaries fighting to keep dictator Moammar Gadhafi in power.

No Colombians have been captured or killed, but rebels this week said they have received accounts of their deadly marksmanship from pro-Gadhafi prisoners and from eyewitnesses in the besieged city Misurata, the largest city in western Libya still under partial rebel control.

Rebel sources said the Colombians are part of a wider force of snipers firing from vantage points atop buildings in Misurata.

“They are shooting to kill,” said Khalid, a doctor in Misurata who gave only his first name. He said most of the injured have head, chest and neck wounds.

The account of the female warriors from Colombia came this week as rebels identified a host of foreigners fighting for the Gadhafi regime or supplying the dictator with valuable material. Mercenaries are paid up to $1,000 a day, according to some reports.

The rebels said they have captured Algerian mercenaries and claim that the authoritarian government of Belarus has sent more than 100 military advisers to help Col. Gadhafi. They said the regime also has received aid from supporters in Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Ukraine.

Algerian and Belarusian officials have denied the rebels’ allegations. Officials with other governments cited by the rebels could not be reached for comment.

A U.S. official, meanwhile, said he doubts that Col. Gadhafi is receiving significant foreign help. “Gadhafi is basically on his own. He isn’t receiving much help - financial, military or otherwise - from his neighbors, even those deemed his friends,” the U.S. official said on the condition of anonymity.

However, two Western officials who spoke on background said the mercenaries are likely fighting because of their own individual reasons and not at the behest of another country.

The presence of the South American mercenaries suggests that Col. Gadhafi could be recruiting fighters from the communist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by their Spanish initials, FARC.

FARC has long-standing ties to the Gadhafi regime, according to information found on the computers of Raul Reyes, a rebel commander killed by Colombian soldiers in 2008. One computer included a Sept. 4, 2000, letter to Col. Gadhafi, asking for a loan of $100 million to buy weapons.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said this month that it is “clear … that [FARC] still has connections to Gadhafi.”

“Libya even offered them $300 million. But we don’t know whether FARC actually received the money,” he said in an interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine.

FARC also has highly trained female fighters capable of handling modern firearms, said Jaime Daremblum, a former Costa Rican ambassador to the United States who is director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the Washington-based Hudson Institute.
Link


Caribbean-Latin America
Colombian military hits rebel camp, kills 14
2010-11-17
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Colombian air and ground forces attacked a guerrilla encampment near the border with Ecuador, killing 14 rebels in the latest of a series of punishing military operations, military officials said.

Colombian air forces first bombed the camp, then followed with an assault by elite helicopter-borne infantry, the officials said.

General Jairo Antonio Herazo, head of the Pacific Joint Command, told a news conference Monday that ground troops recovered the bodies of 14 guerrillas in the operation near the town of Ipiales in southeastern Narino province.

He said two minors, one of whom was an Ecuadoran, were maimed in the attack and given medical treatment.

Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera said the attack was a significant blow to a rebel unit that has raised the most money for the FARC through drug trafficking, and also runs a clandestine radio station.

It was the latest in a series of high profile military offensives against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) since President Juan Manuel Santos took office in August.

Eighteen guerrillas were reported killed in an attack September 19 near the border town of San Miguel.

And on September 22, the FARC's top military commander, Jorge Briceno Suarez, also known as Mono Jojoy, was killed in an attack on a FARC base in central Meta province.

The latest strike comes just before a meeting in Quito November 18 between the two countries foreign and defense ministers.

Colombia's relations with Ecuador have been strained since a March 2008 cross-border raid that killed the FARC's number two, Raul Reyes. But they have been on the mend under Santos.

In other developments, four coppers were killed and two maimed in an ambush Monday by suspected FARC rebels in the southeastern province of Valle de Cauca, police said.

An apparent round of score settling among rival narcos claimed the lives of 11 people Monday in northern Colombia.

Six people were killed in the town of Montelibano in the northeastern province of Cordoba, and five others in the city of Barranquilla after gunnies burst into a party looking for one of the guests, authorities said.
Link


Caribbean-Latin America
More Mexican Mayhem
2010-10-27
19 Die in Northern Mexico

Nineteen individuals were murdered in drug and gang violence in northern Mexican states that included two Juarez police officers shot to death in an ambush Sunday.
For a map, click here
  • Three Juarez municipal police officers were shot to death and two others were wounded in an ambush in eastern Juarez Sunday, say Mexican press accounts. The attack took place near the Delicias police station near the corner of calles Abasolo and Mina in the El Sauzal district where seven officers were riding togather in a van and were attacked by armed suspects. The two victim attempted to flee the atack but were shot dead. The others fled aboard the van with the two wounded. The third officer died later in the day while receiving medical attention. The dead are: Diego Torres Martinez,
    Ricardo Fernández Méndez, and Horacio Santos Recendez. All had been with the Juarez police less than two years.

  • Three unidentified men were shot to death in Juarez Monday, according to Mexican news accounts. The attack took place near the intersection of calles Reyes Estrada and Torres where armed suspects fired on the two victims as they exited from their Oldsmobile Bravada. Two of the victims died as the scene while the third died just before reaching the hospital.

  • Two unidentified men were shot to death Monday afternoon in two separate crimes according to the Mexican daily La Polaka. A man was shot nine times by armed suspects using a 9mm weapon at the La Choza tamales restaurant on Calle Hermanos Escobar. In the second crime a bicyclist was shot near the intersection of calles Ruben Posada Pompa and Francisco Marques in the Melchor Ocampo district by an attacker using a 9mm weapon. The victim was struck eight times by bullets.

  • A man was shot to death attempting to stop an armed robbery at a restaurant in Chihuahua, Chihuahua Monday night. Two armed suspects entered a tortas restaurant on the corner of calles Fuentes Mares and Pacheco and demanded the day's receipts and to rob customers. Raul Reyes Rodriguez died from gunshot wounds as he attempted to intervene in the robbery. The suspect shot Rodriguez and fled, while his accomplice was arrested.

  • Two unidentified men were beheaded in Juarez Tuesday, say Mexican press reports. the victims were found aboard a Jeep Cherokee on calle Minatitlan in the Acacias district with a message. The message read: "Ha ha, the legends prayed." The message was said to have been directed to murderers of women and children, possibly a reference to the Horizontes Sur massacre last Friday.

  • A spectator at a baseball game was shot to death and the game umpire and his son were wounded Monday night in Juarez. Armed suspects carrying assault rifles climbed into the stands at Cheramis baseball field and hot and shot Miguel Angel Franco. The umpire, Ascencio Baron Espinosa, and his unidentified son were struck by stray bullets.

  • An unidentified man was found tortured and shot to death in Chihuahua, Chihuahua Tuesday morning, say Mexican press accounts. The victim was found hands bound in a vacant lot on Avenida Venceremos with two gunshot wounds to the head.

  • Two unidentified men were found shot to death in Tijuana, Baja California say Mexican press accounts. Th victims were found aboard a Jeep Cherokee between calles Jalisco and Veracruz in the La Presa delegation dead from multiple gunshot wounds.

  • Three unidentified men were found shot to death in Torreon, Coahuila Sunday, say Mexican press sources. The victims were found near the intersection of Avenida Zacatecas and Cristo de las Noas in the Zacatecas district. Reports say the trio were on their way home when armed suspects shot them then fled in an unknown direction.

  • A man was found strangled in hs home in Garcia, Nuevo Leon, say Mexican press accounts. Jorge Ramirez Castro was found in the bathroom of his residence calles Berilio and Grafito in Garcia. Garcia is a suburb of Monterrey, Nuevo leon.
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Caribbean-Latin America
Chavez' feelings hurt that anyone would celebrate Mono Jojoy's death
2010-09-27
Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, commenting for the first time on this week's killing of a commander in Colombia's main Marxist rebel group, criticized those who are "joyful" over his death.

"One shouldn't be joyful of the death of anyone," Chavez said Friday night at an event broadcast on state television.
You can just feel the hurt in his words. Make no mistake, Chavez shed tears on hearing that a major terrorist had been killed by the legitimate government, I guarantee it. It put a serious dent in his ambitions to rule beyond his borders. I'm sure that's what he means by this, almost-crying tone. He's sad for himself most of all.
Chavez said he hopes that Colombia continues to work toward a peace deal with the rebels and hopes "they don't continue killing here and there."
So, in other words, you just hope that what's happening stops happening. Typical wishful thinking...it's so stereotypically leftist that it hurts to type this.
The comments by Chavez on the killing of Mono Jojoy were rather subdued compared to his response in 2008 to the slaying of another FARC leader, Raul Reyes, in a cross-border raid into Ecuador by Colombian troops.
This is the one that they identified by your satellite phone calls to him, Senor President-for-Life.
Chavez called Reyes' killing a "coldly calculated murder" and criticized Colombia for wanting to "show off the trophy." During a speech shortly after Reyes' death, he held a moment of silence for the outlaw, a move roundly criticized by the Bogota government.
But roundly praised by the usual suspects, who of course are not mentioned.
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Caribbean-Latin America
Aftermath of the Mono Jojoy raid: computers and a Number Three
2010-09-26
BOGOTA -- Colombian authorities say the data found on 15 computers, 94 USB devices and 14 hard disks at the camp of slain FARC military chief "Mono Jojoy" is many times more valuable and revelatory than that discovered after a 2008 cross-border airstrike into Ecuador that killed another top rebel commander.
Whee! Lots of fun for the forensic programming johnnies! I wonder how many of the contacts they find will be with local representatives of Hizb'allah or the Iranian Revolutionary Guard? And how many with the eight whose homes in Minneapolis and Chicago were searched on Friday by the FBI anti-terrorism division...
That assessment appeared in an article published Saturday by Bogota daily El Tiempo, which added that the Dijin investigative police force's forensic informatics division was charged with evaluating the computer data.
Guys, I'm sure the FBI or Mossad will be happy to lend you some of their spare people, should you want some extra pairs of hands.
The analysis has concluded thus far that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, guerrilla group restricts its use of mobile phones and other electronic devices to the minimum for fear its communications will be intercepted. Instead, they rely on couriers to carry USB memory sticks from one camp to another.
Next they'll want to restrict footgear, although going barefoot has its own peculiar risks when trotting down jungle trails.
The investigators note, for example, that no cellular or satellite phones were found at the camp in south-central Colombia where Victor Julio Suarez Rojas, better known by the aliases Jorge Briceño or "Mono Jojoy," was killed in an airstrike Wednesday along with a score of other guerrillas.

Among other things, the investigation has shown that the computers found at the camp were 2009 and 2010 models, one of which apparently was used exclusively by the FARC military leader. That computer's screen was damaged but the hard disk drive was practically intact and authorities were able to gain access to the data.

Authorities expect to find, in addition to e-mails, videos and recent plans for kidnappings and attacks on towns and security forces.

In March 2008, following a cross-border attack that killed Luis Edgar Devia, better known as Raul Reyes, in Ecuador, authorities recovered a computer and some USB devices of the FARC's No. 2 and international spokesman. But authorities believe the data from Mono Jojoy's camp is more important because the military chief handled more of the rebels' internal information, and that this blow to the FARC therefore leaves the group even more vulnerable than it was after Reyes' death.

The FARC, which has fought a decades-old struggle against a succession of Colombian governments but has seen its numbers fall by more than half in recent years to roughly 8,000 fighters, had suffered a series of setbacks prior to the strike against Mono Jojoy.
And that Number Three:
BOGOTA -- Colombian army troops killed the leader of the 45th Front of the FARC in a gun battle in Arauca province, which borders on Venezuela, officials said Saturday.

The commander of the 18th Army Brigade, Gen. Rafael Alberto Neira Wiesner, told reporters that the death of alias "Hugo Hernandez" will come as a relief for inhabitants of the Tame area, who have been at the mercy of this individual who constantly collected extortion money from them."

The guerrilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was surprised, together with other rebels, as he was collecting an extortion payment. When he saw he had been discovered, a battle broke out that ended with the death of the guerrilla who coordinated extortions for the FARC's 38th, 45th and 56th Fronts.
Not nearly as creative as the Rab encounter reports, but one can imagine how it must have been.
Hugo Hernandez, 35, had been with the FARC for 17 years, and was accused of attacking several towns in the province of Cundinamarca, where the nation's capital Bogota is located, as well as carrying out assaults on Tame and Saravena, two of the main cities in Arauca province.
Wanted on twelve systems, even his mother didn't love him... and can you blame her, a badman miscreant like that?
Link


Caribbean-Latin America
Colombian forces pot 22 Farc rebels
2010-09-21
[Bangla Daily Star] Colombian security forces say they have killed at least 22 Farc rebels in fighting near the Ecuadorean border. Police commandos were dropped by helicopter after air force planes bombed a rebel camp in the jungle.

The fighting in the Putumayo region happened near the town of San Miguel, where eight policemen died in a rebel ambush earlier this month.

President Juan Manuel Santos said it was "the biggest blow in recent times" to the left-wing rebel group. He said the operation was a sign of how he would respond to the war strategy of the rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).

The president succeeded Alvaro Uribe when he won a clear victory in a run-off election in June this year. During his election campaign he had pledged to continue the tough security policies of his predecessor, who left office with high approval ratings after years of hard-line policies against the rebels.

Speaking after Sunday's raid in Putumayo, Mr Santos said he had given "clear orders" to the security forces to "continue giving these kind of blows without treaty or quarter".

He also thanked the government of Ecuador for supporting the operation, saying better co-operation was improving security along the frontier.

Farc rebels have stepped up their violent campaign since president Santos took office on 7 August. Although a senior Farc leader has said the group is prepared to negotiate a settlement, more than 40 security personnel have been killed so far this month in a series of rebel attacks and ambushes.

Analysts say the raids may be intended to force the government into peace talks.

But Mr Santos has said he will not negotiate with the rebels until they release all their hostages and stop attacks.

The Putumayo region is a traditional stronghold of the Farc, as well as a major cocaine-producing area.

Both the Farc and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN) were severely weakened by the tough security policies put in place by Mr Uribe.

Colombia's relations with Ecuador were severely strained under President Uribe after the Colombian armed forces attacked a Farc camp inside Ecuadorean territory in 2008, killing the senior Farc commander, Raul Reyes.
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