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Bogota: A top Colombian guerrilla commander was killed on Saturday in an attack on his jungle camp along the frontier with Ecuador in a severe blow to Latin America's oldest insurgency, the government said.
Raul Reyes was one of the seven members of the leadership
secretariat of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or
FARC, a former peasant army that US and European officials
now label a cocaine-trafficking terrorist organisation.
The death of the top rebel commander is the most
significant success in President Alvaro Uribe's US.-backed
security campaign against the Marxist-inspired guerrillas who are fighting a four-decade-old conflict.
"As a result of this operation 17 guerrillas were killed.
Among them was FARC secretariat member Luis Edgar Devia Silva,better known as Raul Reyes," Defense Minister Juan ManuelSantos told reporters in a news conference.
Santos said intelligence had revealed Reyes' movements nearthe frontier. After an air strike by the Colombian military,
Colombian troops came under fire from guerrillas hiding in
Ecuadorean territory and they responded.
Reyes' body was brought back into Colombia to prevent rebels from taking itaway, he said.
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