Nestor Gregorio Vera, aka ‘Ivan Bite‘, an important leader of FARC dissidentsaccused of coordinating drug trafficking activities in the jungles of southeastern Colombia, died in a bombardment by the Armed Forces, Defense Minister Diego Molano reported on Friday.
The death of Nibblefor whom the government offered a reward of 663,000 dollars, occurred over the weekend in a jungle area near the municipality of San Vicente del Caguán, in the department of Caquetá, during an air attack in which nine other rebels died.
“The objective of the operation was to neutralize one of the main leaders of the FARC dissidents who never entered the Havana peace agreement and whose criminal record of more than 30 years, in the south of the country, had become a scourge for that region,” Molano said at a news conference.
Nibble I was in charge of one of the twofactions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that departed from a peace agreement signed in 2016 to end an internal conflict of more than half a century that has left some 450,000 dead and millions displaced.
“This is an operation in which the last great capo and leader of the FARC falls and a final blow is given to the dissidents,” said Molano, who revealed that with the death of Vera, a plan to refound and expand that armed group was avoided. illegal.
The dissident leader had replaced Gentil Duarte, who died at the end of May in Venezuela in an attack by a rival armed group, according to Colombian security sources.
The dissidences to which he belonged Nibble They were included in the list of terrorist organizations in the United States in November, as was the Second Marquetalia, the other dissident faction led by Iván Márquez, who recently survived an attack in Venezuela, according to the Armed Forces.
The two factions are involved in drug trafficking and illegal mining, according to security sources.
Nibble He became part of a list of FARC dissident leaders killed in recent months, some in Venezuelan territory, in the midst of disputes between rival armed groups for control of drug trafficking.
The deaths in Venezuela of Seuxis Paucias Hernández, alias ‘Jesus Santrich‘; Henry Castellanos Garzon, aka ‘Romagna‘; Hernán Dario Velasquez, alias ‘the country‘, of the Second Marquetalia, as well as ‘Gentil Duarte’, the head of the other FARC dissidence.
All were killed in armed or explosive attacks carried out by small commandos, according to intelligence sources.
Colombia accuses the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro of protecting FARC dissident leaders who have withdrawn from the peace agreement and leaders of the National Liberation Army (ELN), charges that the socialist president insistently denies.
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