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LatinNews Daily Report - 21 January 2014
In Brief- Colombia
SECURITY| Farc death toll in Arauca rises. On 20 January the Colombian armed forces reported that the number of members of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) guerrilla group killed during an army operation carried out the previous day in Tame, Arauca department, had risen from 11 to 14. The Tame operation delivered the heaviest military blow to the Farc since the guerrilla announced the official end of the month-long unilateral ceasefire it had observed during the Christmas period. It also followed the 16 January bomb attack in Valle del Cauca department, attributed to the Farc by the authorities and said to have marked the official end of the ceasefire. In a press conference in Tame General Leonardo Barrera, the general armed forces commander, gave details of the operation. Barrera said that an army helicopter had detected a unit from the Farc's ‘Alfonso Castellanos’ mobile column as it prepared to launch an attack on the rural Tame municipality of Puerto Rondón. According to Barrera, the air force and an army task force then launched a joint bomb attack targeting the Farc column. Barrera said that while initially it was reported that 11 guerrillas had been killed, after the army surveyed the area of the attack additional bodies have now been found. Barrera added that one guerrilla also turned himself in to the army patrol, while another is said to have been wounded as he made an escape. The authorities are now trying to determine if those killed include ‘Franklin’, the presumed leader of the Alfonso Castellanos column, who is believed to have been present during the attack.
