Alfonso Cano.

This is coolbert:

This was a somewhat major news item today? Was heralded on my Internet home page at least. Thanks in part to the New York Daily News.

The FARC, Colombian communist insurgents dealt another serious  blow? Another top commander killed, his headquarters bombed, the identity of the dead insurrectionist confirmed by forensics.

"Alfonso Cano, top FARC leader, killed in combat with Colombian troops"

"Colombian president calls it 'hardest blow to this organization in its entire history'"

Indeed, the death of Alfonso Cano [real name Guillermo Leon Saenz] an indication that the FARC are on the ropes [?], in trouble, beset by government forces that seem to enjoy more and more major successes against a guerrilla group [FARC] that for many decades seemed to be hitherto invincible, or at least presenting the image thereof!

FARC senior leaders and commanders killed or dead, defections/captures/desertions to include:

* "The rebels' leadership has suffered a series of withering blows beginning in March 2008, when the FARC's foreign minister, Raul Reyes, was killed in a bombing raid on a rebel camp across the border in Ecuador."

* "That same month [March 2008], the FARC's revered co-founder, Manuel Marulanda, died in a mountain hideout of a heart attack."

* "Several other top commanders were subsequently killed and rebel desertions, including of midlevel cadres, reached record levels."

FARC in serious trouble? That remains to be seen.

The FARC has an amazing staying power. Guerrillas active in combat against the Colombian governmental forces for almost a period of FIFTY YEARS NOW! And most successfully so too! NOT a rag-tag insurgent force but very well organized [numbering as of this exact instant about 9,000 insurgents], FARC guerrillas having standard uniforms, battle kit and weaponry, a structure of a conventional military force with an irregular mission!

Comments regarding FARC:

* FARC is noted for the incorporation of women into fighting units. As is with the Nepalese and Indian Maoist guerrillas.

* American second-hand but refurbished weaponry as was used by U.S. forces in Vietnam continues to be employed by the Colombian government in the fight against the FARC. Weaponry to include the AC-47 gunship and riverine task force monitor warships.

* FARC does have a degree of foreign support and has had so for many decades? First from Fidel and now from Hugo Chavez. FARC rebels can also find privileged sanctuary in neighboring countries, Venezuela and Ecuador?

* FARC is hardly simon-pure. Deals in drugs, extortion of drug dealers, kidnappings, bombings of civilian targets, intimidation of a brutal nature? Guerrilla insurgencies rarely if ever succeed unless they possess the necessary ruthlessness?

FARC down but not out? Fifty years of survival seems to suggest that the rebellion will continue at some level - - Colombia as a nation no stranger to violence!

coolbert.