They said Operation Sodom, as it has been dubbed, started on Tuesday 21 September, when the heads of all three branches of the Colombian military, the police and the Ministry of Defence met in Bogota to finalise details of the attack.
In the early hours of Wednesday 22 September, 78 aircraft headed for the area known as La Escalera in the Macarena mountain range in Meta province.
They dropped dozens of bombs on Mono Jojoy’s camp, which Defence Minister Rodrigo Rivera has described as “the mother of all lairs” for its size and the number of hidden tunnels it had.
About 400 members of the Colombian special forces then abseiled from helicopters and surrounded the camp.
After hours of fighting, another 400 soldiers and police moved in on the camp, taking it in the early hours of Thursday morning.
*****
What can I say? This is an incredible stroke of luck for the Colombian government in their war against the FARC, and bravo to them for pulling off such an operation.
The first thing that jumped up at me was how they were able to find out who the boot manufacturer was that Mono used to make his custom made jungle boots. Because from that little tip, this entire operation was grown. Basically, once they had a fix on these boots, they were able to slip a GPS tracking device into them and follow the path these boots made from shop to secret jungle camp.
Once the location was found, you can see from the quote up top that the government forces quickly took advantage. They knew what they had, and they put everything they had into being successful.
The use of their Embraer Super Tucanos in this operation is very interesting. With these things, the cost of the air operation is significantly cheaper. This aircraft is also getting a lot of looks from other countries who are fighting insurgencies where their enemies do not have jet aircraft or any serious air power. The reasoning here is that why use multi-million dollar jets that cost thousands of dollars an hour to fuel and maintain, when you can accomplish the same task with cheaper prop aircraft? Colombia is definitely proving the validity of the concept.
The capture of computer hardware is impressive as well. I would suspect that the FARC is sweating bullets right now because everyone on Mono’s hard drive will now be a target. Expect to see more clean up operations designed to demoralize the FARC, and drive them to either dissolve or just surrender. I certainly hope that Colombia is able to break their will and sink this pathetic drug fueled organization. (Mexican drug cartels, you’re next. lol)
Now onto some lessons here. The whole GPS in the boot trick is pretty damn cool and I think any chance we can do the same thing with other enemies in today’s various insurgencies would be a good thing. I say the smaller you can make the device, the better, and make it sturdy enough to insert in all and any objects. Even troops in Afghanistan could be putting GPS devices in all types of things that the enemy could possibly pick up and want to use. These devices should not be just the tools of specialists, and they should be viewed as the tool of modern day combat trackers.
One area that the GPS trick might be well served, is in the endeavor to track animals for anti-poacher operations. Eeben Barlow talked about the Rhino poaching problem in South Africa the other day, and I think small GPS tracking devices would be very helpful in anti-poaching operations.
Better yet, Joseph Kony of the LRA could be tracked using the same method the Colombians used against Mono Jojoy. Either set up some child’s AK with a GPS in the stock, or introduce several of these devices somehow into the possession of this group. Any way possible to track these folks should be looked at and planned for. If you strive to know your enemy, you should be able to find some weakness or opening at one point in your hunt for him. The imagination is the only limit and the pay off would be incredible. –Matt
FARC Military Leader Suárez’s Death Is Blow to Four-Decade Insurgency
Colombian police examine Farc rebels’ laptops
A chip hidden in the boots of Mono Jojoy allowed to locate in the jungle
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The bodies of guerrillas killed, including Mono Jojoy.
Colombia Kills Guerrilla Chief
FARC Military Leader Suárez’s Death Is Blow to Four-Decade Insurgency
By JOSé DE CóRDOBA And DARCY CROWE
BOGOTA—Colombia’s army killed the military leader of the country’s communist guerrillas in a two-day battle that involved airstrikes against his jungle bunker, dealing a major blow to the four-decade insurgency, officials said Thursday.
Victor Suárez, 57 years old, nicknamed “Mono Jojoy,” was the second in command and top field marshal of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Latin America’s biggest and oldest guerrilla group. To many ordinary Colombians, his thick moustache and Che Guevara-style black beret were synonymous with the FARC.
“Mono Jojoy is dead,” Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos told reporters in New York, where he is attending the United Nations General Assembly. “This is the most devastating blow ever dealt to the FARC.”
The strike was a big boost for Mr. Santos, who took office in August. He dubbed the military mission, which involved more than 30 aircraft, “Operation Welcome.” In his role as defense minister under Colombia’s previous president, Álvaro Uribe, Mr. Santos oversaw some notable blows against the FARC.
The death of Mr. Suárez, also known by his nom de guerre Jorge Briceño, could cripple the FARC’s so-called eastern block, its most powerful fighting force based in the country’s southeastern plains. Analysts said it could nudge the guerrillas, who number between 6,000 and 7,000 fighters, toward seeking peace.
Mr. Suárez, who reputedly joined the guerrillas at age 12, had a reputation for brutality. He was linked to a 2003 car bombing in Bogota that left scores dead and to the 2002 kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt, a former presidential candidate who was freed in a military operation two years ago. The U.S. offered a $5 million reward for his capture.
His death is the latest in a string of devastating blows to the FARC, which once threatened to overrun the country and has increasingly turned to drug trafficking to fund its activities.
In 2008, Raul Reyes, then second-in-command of the FARC, was killed in a controversial crossborder raid in Ecuador that caused Quito to protest its sovereignty had been violated. Shortly after, the FARC’s founder, Manuel Marulanda, known as “Tirofijo” or “Sure Shot,” died from an apparent heart attack.
U.S. officials praised the operation against the FARC, considered a terrorist group by Washington and Europe.
“This is an important victory for Colombia,” said National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer. President Barack Obama is scheduled to meet with Mr. Santos on Friday in New York to discuss this and other developments, said Mr. Hammer.
Soldiers identified Mr. Suárez’s body after two days of combat earlier this week against what Colombian officials described as the rebels’ military nerve center. Mr. Suárez’s headquarters had a concrete bunker complete with escape tunnels, Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera told a news conference.
About 20 guerrillas who guarded Mr. Suárez were killed, Mr. Santos said. Five soldiers were wounded. Mr. Rivera said the only government fatality was a bomb-sniffing dog named Sasha.
The operation was helped by undercover intelligence gathered from close associates of Mr. Suárez. Such intelligence operations are becoming a hallmark of Colombia’s armed forces, which have received billions of dollars in U.S. aid. In 2008, Colombian forces released Ms. Betancourt and other hostages by posing as members of nongovernmental peace groups.
Mr. Rivera, the defense minister, renewed a call to FARC leaders to turn themselves in. “Surrender and we will guarantee your lives,” he said.
The FARC has been fighting successive Colombian governments since 1964. In the late 1990s, the FARC numbered around 18,000 fighters and threatened to encircle Bogota. Former President Uribe made the fight against the guerrillas his central aim, and put them on the run.
After Mr. Santos took power, the FARC’s top commander, Alfonso Cano, issued a communiqué asking for international mediators to negotiate peace. But at the same time, the guerrillas embarked on a military offensive ambushing soldiers and police in remote coca-growing areas of Colombia, and allegedly planting a bomb in Bogota.
Mr. Santos was beginning to feel political heat, as Colombians wondered whether he would be able to maintain the gains made by Mr. Uribe. On Thursday, Mr. Santos vowed to continue the campaign against the guerrillas. “This was Operation Welcome,” he said in New York. “To the rest of the FARC—We are going after you.”
Mr. Suárez’s death is likely to further demoralize the FARC, whose ranks in recent years have been decimated by desertions.
“This will leave a huge gap in the top levels of the guerrilla leadership…and may well force Cano to consider seriously the negotiation option,” said Bruce Bagley, a Colombia expert at the University of Miami.
The group could stage attacks in the coming weeks, however.
“They will try to show that they are viable, but it won’t be major,” said Jay Cope, senior research fellow at the U.S.’s Institute for National Strategic Studies in Washington.
Colombian officials said they were also on the trail of Mr. Cano, the leader of the FARC’s seven-man secretariat.
Unlike Mr. Cano, a bearded and bespectacled former communist student leader, Mr. Suárez came from a peasant background and rose through the ranks. It is believed his mother was also a guerrilla, and a cook for Jacobo Arenas, one of the FARC’s founders. Through Mr. Suárez’s career, he developed a reputation for imparting harsh discipline to guerrillas who broke regulations.
“He was the epitome of the drug-fueled fighting FARC,” said a Colombian official.
At the time of his death, Mr. Suárez had been indicted on drug charges in the U.S. and had warrants outstanding and convictions in absentia in Colombia for crimes including murder, kidnapping, drug trafficking and terrorism.
A businessman as well as a fighter, Mr. Suárez is believed by analysts to have amassed a herd of 30,000 cattle in Caqueta state, in southeastern Colombia.
Story here.
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Colombian police examine Farc rebels’ laptops
25 September 2010
Experts in Colombia are trying to crack the codes to 15 computers and almost 100 memory sticks belonging to Colombia’s largest rebel group.
They were seized on Thursday after a massive raid on a Farc jungle camp.
One of the laptops is believed to have belonged to its military leader, Mono Jojoy, who was killed in the attack.
Police are hoping to find information which could reveal the whereabouts of 20 members of the security forces held captive by the Farc.
The computers are being examined by 40 experts from the police criminal investigation unit in the capital, Bogota.
Police officials said the 15 laptops, 94 memory sticks and 14 hard discs contained 11 times more information than that seized from Raul Reyes, a senior Farc leader killed in a raid in 2008.
They believe one of the 15 laptops seized was Mono Jojoy’s personal computer. Its screen was reportedly shattered by bullets, but its hard disc was still intact.
They also said the large number of memory sticks seized at the jungle camp and the fact that not a single two-way radio or mobile phone was found suggests the rebels relay information through couriers rather than risk having their electronic communication tapped or traced.
The investigators said they hoped to retrieve clues to the location of Farc camps which would help them mount future attacks and allow them to free the group’s remaining hostages, which official numbers put at 79.
But the head of the Colombian police, General Oscar Naranjo, warned it could take months to retrieve all the information from the computers.
Fighting continues
Military officials also revealed more information about the operation in which the Farc’s number two, Mono Jojoy, was killed.
They said Operation Sodom, as it has been dubbed, started on Tuesday 21 September, when the heads of all three branches of the Colombian military, the police and the Ministry of Defence met in Bogota to finalise details of the attack.
In the early hours of Wednesday 22 September, 78 aircraft headed for the area known as La Escalera in the Macarena mountain range in Meta province.
They dropped dozens of bombs on Mono Jojoy’s camp, which Defence Minister Rodrigo Rivera has described as “the mother of all lairs” for its size and the number of hidden tunnels it had.
About 400 members of the Colombian special forces then abseiled from helicopters and surrounded the camp.
After hours of fighting, another 400 soldiers and police moved in on the camp, taking it in the early hours of Thursday morning.
General Javier Florez, the commander of the joint task force leading the attack, said his men were able to identify Mono Jojoy by his scars, eye colour and the fact he carried insulin for his diabetes. His identity was verified by experts on Friday.
Police sources told the BBC they suspected a number of other senior Farc leaders were killed alongside Mono Jojoy, including the men known as Mad Ivan, Mauricio the Medic and Romana, although their bodies have not yet been identified.
The Colombian military said a total of between 20 and 30 guerrillas died in the initial attack. Thirteen members of the security forces were injured, most of them when they abseiled into the jungle.
Fighting continues in the area around Mono Jojoy’s camp, which commanding officer Gen Miguel Perez described as “a rugged area of very difficult access”.
About 10,000 extra police officers have been deployed to Colombia’s main cities to prevent retaliatory attacks by the Farc.
Story here.
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A chip hidden in the boots of Mono Jojoy allowed to locate in the jungle
24/09/2010
The late military chief of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), alias Mono Jojoy, managed to be located by authorities, allegedly by a chip that was placed in one of his boots, according to local media Friday.
The introduction of the chip was achieved after authorities intercepted a communication from the guerrillas that requested special shoes for the guerrilla leader, said in a special report of RCN Radio.
“Official sources revealed that the task of intelligence that allowed to reach the ‘Mono Jojoy’ developed diabetes around the rebel leader who was suffering,” said the middle.
Guerrilla disease had apparently affected the circulation in his feet caused him serious injuries that forced him to use in recent months a special shoe.
“Security Agency intercepted a communication from the guerrillas calling for special shoes, which were shipped with a GPS locator which permitted the full location of Mono Jojoy,” the media.
For the bombing on Wednesday killed Jojoy and several of his bodyguards in a rural area of La Macarena (center) the Colombian authorities used about 50 bombs and about 57 aircraft.
During the operation were seized about 15 computers and 60 USB sticks with the guerrillas, which will be reviewed by intelligence agencies.
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Un chip oculto en las botas del ‘Mono Jojoy’ permitió localizarlo en la selva
24/09/2010
El fallecido jefe militar de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), alias ‘Mono Jojoy’, logró ser localizado por las autoridades presuntamente por un chip que le fue colocado en una de sus botas, según informó este viernes la prensa local.
La introducción del chip se logró después de que las autoridades interceptaron una comunicación de la guerrilla en la que se solicitaban unos zapatos especiales para el jefe guerrillero, según indicó en un reporte especial de RCN Radio.
“Fuentes oficiales revelaron que la tarea de inteligencia que permitió llegar al ‘Mono Jojoy’ se desarrolló en torno a la diabetes que padecía el jefe insurgente”, señaló el medio.
La enfermedad del guerrillero al parecer le había afectado la circulación y le generó en sus pies heridas de consideración que lo obligaron a utilizar en los últimos meses un calzado especial.
“Organismos de seguridad interceptaron una comunicación de la guerrilla en la que se pedía unos zapatos especiales, los cuales fueron enviados con un localizador GPS que permitió establecer la plena ubicación del ‘Mono Jojoy'”, precisó el medio.
Para el bombardeo que dio muerte este miércoles a ‘Jojoy’ y varios de sus guardaespaldas en una zona rural del municipio de La Macarena (centro) las autoridades colombianas utilizaron cerca de 50 bombas y unas 57 aeronaves.
Durante la operación fueron confiscadas unas 15 computadoras y 60 memorias USB de la guerrilla, que serán analizadas por organismos de inteligencia.
Story here.