Colombian troops capture FARC guerrillas, gang chief

Colombian authorities caught in recent days two suspected commanders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in operations in western and south-western Colombia. One, the presumed guerrilla dubbed Arquímedes or Alquímedes, was identified as the deputy-head of the Jacobo Arenas Mobile Column whose commander was shot in early May and described as "one of the army's main targets in south-western" Colombia since then, Caracol radio reported on 24 May. Arquímedes, said to coordinate guerrillas in eight districts in the northern part of Cauca, was caught early on 24 May near a bridge on the border between the Cauca and Valle de Cauca departments. Soldiers and intelligence agents caught in the western department of Risaralda another suspected FARC member named as José Eniller Lengua Gañán, Caracol radio reported on 25 May. The detained was described as in charge of 21 fighters from the FARC's Aurelio Rodríguez Front and engaged in extortion in Risaralda. In the west-coast district of Istmina in the department of Chocó, police caught early on 24 May a suspected gangster and former paramilitary dubbed Guacharaco, described as a member or head of a gang called Águilas Negras or Renacer, Caracol radio reported on 25 May. The suspect was sought for his suspected role in crimes including killings and extortions in Chocó; his group was said to be working with the gang Los Urabeños to exclude another gang the Rastrojos from control of drug routes in Chocó, Caracol reported.

FARC guerrillas launch deadly attacks in Colombia

Two attacks attributed to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on 4 and 5 April killed three soldiers and three civilians and injured 11, while Caracol radio reported continued fighting on 5 April between soldiers and the FARC's Sixth Front around the Corinto district, media reported. Early that day the suspected FARC guerrillas launched a bomb attack on telecommunication installations outside the town of Corinto early on 5 April, killing three soldiers and injuring seven, El Espectador reported, citing comments by the head of army's Task Apollo Force active in the zone, General Jorge Jerez. The day before the FARC fired explosives onto the locality of Guatemala in the district of Miranda, in northern Cauca, killing three including "two children" and injuring four, Caracol radio reported on 4 April. In that attack the FARC began "indiscriminately launching improvised explosive artefacts against houses," El Espectador reported locals as saying. Also on 4 April, a policeman was injured when suspected guerrillas fired on a police station in the district of San Calixto, in the Norte de Santander department, northern Colombia. The attack was attributed to Front 33 of the FARC, the broadcaster Caracol reported.

Seven hostages freed in Colombia

Colombia's two communist rebel forces, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) freed on 15 February two policemen and five contractors they held hostage, while a mediator suggested a soldier being held by the FARC might also be released within days. The policemen were handed to over to mediators in a rural part of the district of Miranda in the south-western Cauca department, then to government envoys at a base in the district of Florida in the Valle de Cauca department, Caracol radio reported. The former senator Piedad Córdoba, to whom the policemen were initially given, was to mediate for the liberation within days of a soldier also being held by the FARC, Caracol reported. In the northern department of Bolívar, the ELN released five of six hostages they held, handing them over to the Red Cross; these were three Colombians and two Peruvians kidnapped on 18 January in the district of Norosí in the southern part of Bolívar. The ELN retained one hostage, the Canadian national Jernoc Wobert. Separately the Humanitarian Committee of Huila (Comité humanitario de Huila) affiliated to the Huila departmental government stated on 15 February that "illegal armed groups" retained 38 hostages from that department, a number it stated it had verified with relatives, Caracol reported on 15 February. They were presumably held by the FARC who are present in this part of Colombia.

Guerrilla bomb kills two in south-western Colombia

Two were killed on 5 February as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) exploded a car bomb near the village or town of El Palo in the Cauca department, Europa Press reported, citing Colombian media. The FARC reportedly intended to detonate the artefact inside the town but were foiled by the arrival of troops and shooting that followed. The victims were provisionally identified as a soldier and a civilian. Colombia's police chief José Roberto León Riaño ordered the security of police stations boosted on 6 February in response to a recent resurgence of FARC activities. He said 14 policemen had died in January for FARC attacks, Europa Press and El Espectador reported. A priest was also reported killed at home on 3 January in the district of Riosucio in the western department of Caldas, Europa Press reported, citing the Catholic agency MISNA. Father José Ancízar Mejía Palomino, aged 84, was the third priest to have been killed in the preceding 20 days, Europa Press reported.

Four Colombian soldiers killed fighting rebels

Four soldiers were reported killed and two wounded in a gun fight with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the south-eastern department of Nariño late on 30 January, while the FARC and state representatives were to resume peace talks in Havana on 31 January. The soldiers were killed when rebels fired on a patrol in the Puerto Sánchez locality of the district of Policarpa, amid ongoing army operations in southern Colombia, El Espectador and the broadcaster Caracol reported. The same day the FARC were thought to have kidnapped three oil-sector contractors in the district of Piamonte in the southern Cauca department, although this had yet to be verified. This followed the FARC's kidnapping of two policemen on 25 January and their recent declaration that they would resume hostage-taking. The engineers were stopped on a road by armed elements outside the district capital, Caracol reported. The National Association of the Kidnapped and Disappeared (Asociación Nacional de Secuestrados y Desaparecidos), a civic body, has stated its conviction that the FARC retained as captives "at least" 20 soldiers and policemen in spite of declaring in February 2012 that it had freed all servicemen. The broadcaster RCN La Radio cited its spokesman Rafael Mora as saying "we are certain that about 20 members of the military remain in the FARC's hands...we have documented data with the complaints and all the information needed in this case to show that the FARC still hold them." That is if they had not been murdered or had not died: RCN cited the mother of the sergent William Gómez Cabrera, reported as kidnapped in 2004 in the southern district of Teteyé, as saying that she had been "told" he was a killed a year later but had no reliable news. "I need to be told the truth. If they murdered him, they should tell me where they left him, where his remains are," she was cited as saying.

Colombian guerrillas renew attacks, end ceasefire

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) ended their two-month ceasefire on 20 January by bombing power installations in the southern department of Putumayo and exchanging fire with police in several parts of the country. The ceasefire, declared but not strictly respected by the FARC, was intended to act as a fillip to ongoing peace talks with the Colombian government. The broadcaster Caracol reported attacks on a pipeline and a power pole that provoked an oil spill in the former case and a temporary blackout in the latter in three districts of western Putumayo. The police also said they exchanged fire with the FARC that day in the locality of El Placer in that department, Europa Press reported. A police helicopter was fired on by suspected FARC guerrillas just before the end of the ceasefire on 19 January, in the south-western district of Jambaló in the Cauca department. Caracol television showed police firing back with a machine gun from the helicopter, which was taking police reinforcements to the district of Jambaló. The Cauca's police chief Ricardo Alarcón told Caracol that police were re-trained and "exhaustively" prepared for renewed guerrilla actions at the end of the ceasefire; the broadcaster reported that more than 250 policemen were sent to reinforce security in districts in northern Cauca threatened by the FARC, namely Toribío, Jambaló, Caldono. In the northern department of Nariño, the FARC attacked a police station in the district of Tumaco, Caracol reported. Separately, state forces reportedly caught three suspects thought involved in the kidnapping of five mining employees in the department of Bolívar; the action was attributed to the National Liberation Army, the other communist guerrilla force in Colombia. President Juan Manuel Santos announced the captures at a Bogotá press conference on 20 January, observing that two of the detained were minors of unspecified age. He was speaking after an extraordinary security meeting to discuss the response to the end of the FARC ceasefire with the defence minister and army and police chiefs, the broadcaster Caracol reported.

Colombian rebels said to have broken ceasefire pledge

They had promised not to attack for two months from 20 November while talking peace with the Colombian state, but this pledge by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was apparently broken by a deadly mortar or explosives attack on 8 December, which the army attributed to the FARC. An army colonel said members of the FARC's Sixth Front were suspected to have thrown explosives at houses in a rural zone of the district of Caloto in the Cauca department, killing a man and injuring three women, the daily El Espectador reported. One of the injured was a 16-year-old girl. "We don't know where the ceasefire is because look what happened here," El Tiempo cited a relative of the victims as saying. The daily cited the head of the army's anti-terrorist Apollo Task force General Jorge Humberto Jerez Cuellar as saying that troops were two kilometres from the site of the incident, meaning this could not have been a defensive action. Another army spokesman was reported as saying that there had been no recent clashes in this area. Jerez was cited by the same daily as saying on 20 November that the FARC broke their ceasefire pledge hours after declaring it. They apparently failed in their bid to draw soldiers onto a minefield that day. On 9 December, the FARC publicly urged the Colombian Defence Minister Juan Carlos Pinzón Bueno to start a "verbal ceasefire" and stop his alleged hostility to ongoing peace conversations in Havana. "We urge the Defence Minister to at least end his verbal hostility, which is incessantly firing at the peace process," the rebel and FARC negotiator dubbed Iván Márquez stated in Havana, reading out a communiqué. The statement added that peace depended not just on negotiators but on the "involvement of the national country" and the "common people," El Espectador reported.

FARC attack kills six policemen in Colombia

Suspected members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) attacked a police post in western Colombia on 29 October, killing six members of the highway police, media reported. The attack with gunfire and explosives took place on a road between the districts of Puerto Tejada and Villarica in the north of the Cauca department, and was suspected to be the work of the FARC's Sixth Front, El Colombiano reported on 30 October.