Petro orders bombings against FARC dissidents after drone attack

The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, ordered the bombing of a faction of the Central General Staff (EMC), the largest dissident of the FARC, after the drone attack carried out by this group in the department of Cauca (southwest) that left a number of civilians and wounded soldiers.

“By bombing the civilian population, the EMC forces us, by the principle of proportionality, to bomb their forces. I send you a message: defeat greed and make peace in favor of the Colombian people,” the president wrote on the social network X about this decision, unprecedented in his two years in office.

The EMC attack occurred after the Army launched ‘Operation Perseus’ this morning to regain control of El Plateado, a town that is the main stronghold of the EMC and is located in the municipality of Argelia.

Operation details

For this operation, the Ministry of Defense detailed, the military is using “special units, aircraft and artillery capabilities” such as tanks, and published wanted posters for seven leaders of the Carlos Patiño group of the EMC, including its top leader, Anderson Andrey Vargas. Suns, aka Kevin.

In this sense, the authorities have managed to arrest two alleged dissidents of the Carlos Patiño, as well as seizing “rifles, ammunition and explosive devices.”

“Added to this is the possible neutralization (death) of several individuals belonging to this group, information that is being corroborated through intelligence work,” the Army added in a message on X this afternoon.

Security

In total, more than 1,400 soldiers have arrived in the area with the objective of guaranteeing the security of the more than 8,000 people who live in El Plateado, which is part of the municipality of Argelia.

For several years now, El Plateado has been one of the strongholds of the part of the EMC led by alias Iván Mordisco, who does not negotiate peace, and a key area of ​​territorial control because it is a step on the drug route out of Colombia. through the Pacific.

For this reason, its inhabitants live in constant anxiety due to the attacks committed by this armed group and the confrontations with the Army.

The Government and the bombings

Since assuming power in August 2022, Petro changed the policy of the fight against illegal armed groups with the suspension of bombings, a tactic that gave results against the guerrillas but was highly criticized for the casualties caused among recruited minors, whom The president has described them as victims of the conflict.

The bombings had become controversial because, according to the leftist senator Iván Cepeda, at least 29 minors died from bombs launched by the Colombian Military Forces against dissident camps of the FARC, the Clan del Golfo and the guerrillas of the Army of National Liberation (ELN) during the Government of Iván Duque, which began in 2018 and ended on August 7, 2022.

Bogotá / EFE