BROOKINGS
Colombia: Defeating FARC’s Narcoterrorism
Colombian Military Forces officials confirmed on September 24 the death in combat of Jorge Briceño Suárez, aka Mono Jojoy, FARC’s most prominent warlord and sanguinary leader. Defense minister, Rodrigo Rivera, rightly said that military forces “had just made the most devastating hit against the most hated man in the country”.
The security situation in Colombia has changed significantly since 2002 when ex-president Alvaro Uribe took office and started a strong military offensive against FARC terrorist group. This offensive made the president astonishingly popular and shaped the general idea that defeating FARC guerrillas was possible.
Some of the most important military operations include the capture of ‘Simón Trinidad’ as part of a cooperative effort between Ecuador’s and Colombia’s forces in 2004 and the death of one of the most feared leaders of FARC, ‘Martin Caballero’, in 2007. But probably the most important operations took place in 2008 when Colombian Air Force bombed a rebel camp in Ecuador, killing Raúl Reyes, the second highest-ranking FARC commander. That year, the Colombian military rescued in a bloodless operation three American contractors and Ingrid Betancourt, an ex-presidential candidate that had been kidnapped for more than six years.
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