03-07-2008, 03:11 PM
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Guru
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Join Date: Dec 2005
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Another FARC leader killed
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Top commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Manuel Marulanda (R), is seen with the FARC's commander Ivan Rios (L) in Los Pozos in this March 8, 2001 file photo. Rios, a top leader of Colombia's biggest left-wing rebel group, was killed on March 7, 2008, in Colombia, the army said, marking the second blow to FARC's leadership in less than a week.
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BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian rebel leader Ivan Rios was killed this week by his own men, not in combat with security forces, as the army originally reported, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said on Friday.
Rios, the youngest man on the seven-member secretariat of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and considered key to the group's future, was shot dead in Colombia's northwestern coffee-producing region.
Six days earlier Colombian forces had sparked a diplomatic crisis by raiding Ecuadorean territory and killing the FARC's No. 2 leader Raul Reyes. The incident threatened to escalate into South America's first conventional war in more than a decade.
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http://www.boston.com/news/world/lat...ed_by_own_men/
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Colombia Rebel Commander Ivan Rios Reported Killed; Cross-Border Tensions Rise
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — Ivan Rios, a top leader of FARC, was killed Friday by his own chief of security in what was the second major blow to the country's biggest left-wing rebel group in less than a week, Colombia's government confirmed.
The news threatened to destabilize already strained relations between Colombia and Venezuela following the death of another FARC leader, Raul Reyes, who was killed in a firefight with Colombian government forces last weekend.
Rios' security chief gave Colombian troops the leader's severed hand as proof, the defense minister said Friday.
Ivan Rios was the second top rebel killed in a week, a major setback for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the country's largest rebel force. FARC spokesman Raul Reyes was killed Saturday in a cross-border raid in Ecuador that set off an international diplomatic crisis.
"The FARC has suffered a new, major blow," Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said at a news conference.
Santos said troops launched an operation designed to capture Rios on Feb. 17 after receiving tips that he was in a mountainous area of the western province of Caldas.
On Thursday, he said, a guerrilla known as Rojas came to the troops with Rios' severed hand, laptop computer and ID, saying he had killed his boss.
It was unclear what motivated Rojas to kill his boss. Santos did not say what happened to Rojas, and he did not take questions.
The U.S. State Department has a standing bounty of $5 million for Rios' capture.
Local Colombian media showed live pictures from the border where a few Venezuelan troops allegedly crossed into Colombia and fired shots.
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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,335880,00.html
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