Colombian military officials announced on Tuesday, November 11, that an airstrike carried out by the army the day before had killed nineteen members of a guerrilla group in the Amazon region in the southeast of the country.
The bombing, which targeted the dissident former FARC group, came as leftist President Gustavo Petro faced US sanctions over his reluctance to target armed groups involved in drug trafficking.
The strike occurred on Monday “at dawn” and cause death “nineteen terrorists”for the arrest and confiscation of military equipment, Admiral Francisco Cubides said at a press conference. This military operation was a response to the threat of attack “near” guerrillas against military targets, he said.
President Petro has ordered, on Monday, “military bombing and dissolution” from a group led by the country’s most wanted guerrilla, known by the pseudonym Ivan Mordisco, after the failure of peace negotiations between the government and the Central Staff (EMC). Ivan Mordisco leads EMC, a rebel group that rejects the 2016 peace agreement between Farc (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerrillas and Bogota.
Pressure on Gustavo Petro
The group has grown in power since the FARC’s disarmament, and funds its ranks through drug trafficking, extortion and illegal mining in remote areas of the country, according to experts. Its fighters compete for territory in the Colombian Amazon with another FARC splinter group, led by a man named Calarca.
The United States recently imposed sanctions targeting Petro and his relatives and removed Colombia’s status as an ally in the fight against drug trafficking, saying the leftist government was not doing enough to curb cocaine production.
Ahead of the 2026 presidential election, Gustavo Petro is also facing criticism from the opposition who consider him too soft on criminal groups and accuse him of failing in his strategy to lead peace talks with armed groups remaining in Colombia.
