The air force attacks on the Cañon de Limon and the army incursion of the valley just north of the town of Chaparral forced the FARC leader to move out of the Tolima highlands, first southward and ultimately into the more western Cauca department.
Military sources told weekly Semana that this operation was the beginning of the end of Cano, who had been protected against Army and Air Force by the extreme cold and almost constant fog in the mountain valley.
Following the attack, the military created a militarized corridor from north to south, preventing provisions and reinforcements from the FARC’s Eastern Block to reach Cano’s Central Block, Semana said. This forced Cano to seek reinforcements from the Western Block which had been enforced over the year’s with some of the best guerrilla fighters.
This is fantastic news. Cano did have a bounty on his head, but as you can see from the quote up top, this was purely a military operation. I think this is also a very interesting operation in terms of smoking out tough opponents located in hard to reach zones.
Cano was in a great location, because the fog and terrain was limiting the effectiveness of aircraft, and probably drones for that matter. Although I am sure they were able to get some ISR going up in those hills. Perhaps reconnaissance teams were the best option for locating and targeting?
But the big component here to this operation, looks to be the militarized corridors that were north and south of that position. To basically deny Cano supplies and reinforcements, and force him to move in order to operate. Couple that with the constant bombing runs on his camps, and that was a great combination for getting him out in the open.
Perhaps there are some lessons here for the hunt for Joseph Kony in Africa? Perhaps the strategists in this operation had a metaphorical ‘Trojan Horse’ to defeat Cano with, hence the Odysseus operation name? I would have to think that if you could get one mole into Cano’s group up in those mountains, then you could get the kind of information that could be advantageous. Good job to the Colombians! –Matt
Alfonso Cano, leader of Colombia’s FARC rebels, killed in raid
By Juan Forero
November 5, 2011
The bookish communist intellectual who led the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, one of the world’s oldest insurgent groups, was killed Friday in a military strike in the biggest blow against that organization in its 47-year history.
Guillermo Saenz Vargas, who was better known to Colombians and American military advisers by the nom de guerre Alfonso Cano, was shot in a firefight with Colombian security forces during an operation in which the military bombed his position and deployed elite commandos, military officials said early Saturday morning.
The death occurred outside the town of Suarez in Cauca, a mountainous state in Colombia’s southwest that for years has been an epicenter of conflict between the armed forces and the FARC.
“The death of Alfonso Cano, the No. 1 commander of the FARC, has been confirmed,” President Juan Manuel Santos said in a brief nationally televised address shortly after midnight. “It is the biggest blow against the FARC in all its history.”
The death of Cano, who was reported to be 63, does not mean the end of the FARC.
The rebel group, which has its roots in a peasant movement that took up arms in 1964, still has as many as 9,000 fighters. Its reliance on the cocaine trade means that it also has a relatively reliable stream of funding for its war against the state, which FARC leaders have long pledged to topple and replace with a communist regime.
But Friday’s strike was the first time that the security forces had ever killed the supreme commander of the FARC. The group’s founder and guiding light, Manuel Marulanda, died of a heart attack in 2008, opening the way for Cano to take over the organization.
Cano’s death also comes after several years in which the group has sustained punishing blows from an increasingly effective armed forces. An aerial bombardment last year killed the FARC’s legendary field marshal, Victor Julio Suarez, and two other members of the FARC’s ruling circle, the so-called secretariat, were killed in 2008.
The use of Brazilian-made fighter-bombers, elite troops, infiltrators and intelligence has neutralized at least a quarter of the FARC fronts, or units, that in the past controlled swaths of Colombian territory, military officials say. The United States has played a vital role, providing up to $700 million a year in mostly military aid, much of it coming in the form of helicopters, training and intelligence equipment.
The rebel group that in the 1990s had the manpower, equipment and strength to outmaneuver large army units, and even storm bases, has since been relegated to the far corners of this large country. The number of guerrillas who have disarmed and joined a government demobilization program has shot up in recent years, with about 1,800 expected to lay down their weapons by the end of this year, the government said.
Colombia’s new defense minister, Juan Carlos Pinzon, told reporters in a press briefing that FARC members should “use this moment to reflect and take historic actions that will take Colombia to prosperity.”
“Today, the members of that organization, the youngest ones, have to understand that the path is to leave that organization and to incorporate themselves in society,” Pinzon said.
The president also called on guerrillas to turn themselves in and take advantage of government programs that include lenient treatment.
“This blow is confirmation that crime does not pay and violence is not the way,” Santos said. “Demobilize, as we have said many times, because if you do not you will wind up in jail or in a tomb.”
The son of middle class parents from the capital, Bogota, Cano had learned about revolution from books, devouring Karl Marx. In the 1970s, as a student in Bogota’s National University, he drifted toward radical campus politics and dreamed of creating a better society. By 1982, he had joined the FARC and rose quickly through the ranks.
His faith in a political solution to the conflict waned in the late 1980s and 90s as hundreds of politicians from a leftist party the FARC hoped to use as a political vehicle were slain by death squad gunmen, who often worked in tandem with shadowy military units.
“It is a state policy to destroy anyone who isn’t in favor or sympathizes with the government,” Cano said in a rare one-on-one interview in 2000 with The Washington Post, one of his last. “We exist precisely because the government does not give the country the possibility to participate in its own development. That is why we have to fight.”
Still, facing an increasingly untenable situation, the FARC had in recent months sent out signals that some analysts believed showed a new willingness on the part of the group to consider negotiations. In January, Cano had said in a statement that compensation to victims of Colombia’s war — a central feature in a law pushed by Santos — was “essential to a future of reconciliation.”
And the president, in an interview with The Post in June, had said that “the door is not closed for a dialogue with the FARC.”
But the Colombian government had long insisted that it would only engage in talks with the FARC as long as the group called a cease-fire and released the hostages it holds in jungle camps. The group so far has refused those demands.
For the government, the priority in recent months had been to hunt Cano down.
He was finally cornered after his camp was located and bombed from the air. Pinzon told reporters that four other rebels were killed and five were captured, and that troops had found seven computers, 39 thumb drives and cash.
Colombians’ final image of Cano was shown on national television: the photograph security forces took of his body. His thick hair was shorter than usual, his trademark beard had been shaved and his eyes were wide open, caught staring straight ahead in the moment of his death.
Story here.—————————————————————-
Chronology of ‘Operation Odysseus’ that killed ‘Alfonso Cano’
Saturday, 05 November 2011
By Adriaan Alsema
The Colombian military “Operation Odysseus” that killed FARC leader “Alfonso Cano” on Friday began months earlier when armed forces attacked FARC camps in the south of the Tolima department where the FARC leader was thought to have been hiding for years.
The air force attacks on the Cañon de Limon and the army incursion of the valley just north of the town of Chaparral forced the FARC leader to move out of the Tolima highlands, first southward and ultimately into the more western Cauca department.
Military sources told weekly Semana that this operation was the beginning of the end of Cano, who had been protected against Army and Air Force by the extreme cold and almost constant fog in the mountain valley.
Following the attack, the military created a militarized corridor from north to south, preventing provisions and reinforcements from the FARC’s Eastern Block to reach Cano’s Central Block, Semana said. This forced Cano to seek reinforcements from the Western Block which had been enforced over the year’s with some of the best guerrilla fighters.
Between the attack on Cano’s hideout and October, guerrilla units from the FARC’s 6th and 13th Front started a series of attacks on towns that were located in between Cano’s old hideout and the location where he later was killed.
Meanwhile, the FARC’s number one was traveling from the town of Corinto, passing Caloto to Suarez while being tailed by the armed forces, newspaper El Tiempo reported.
While traveling westward, Cano reportedly was accompanied by no more than 10 immediate bodyguards.
The final stage of “Operation Odysseus” began approximately a week ago when ground troops around the town of Caldono began fighting guerrilla forces of the 6th Front who had become in charge of the security of their leader.
On Friday morning, the air forces bombed a FARC camp near Suarez. According to the military, Cano was injured in this attack and following an offensive, ground troops were able to capture “El Indio Efrain,” one of Cano’s personal bodyguards, three others and kill Cano’s girlfriend and a guerrilla called “El Zorro.”
While fleeing the scene, Cano was identified by soldiers, pursued and killed.
Story here.