COLOMBIAN FORCES KILL SENIOR GUERRILLA COMMANDER, OFFICIAL SAYS

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Colombia's Defense Ministry announced Saturday
that security forces had killed a senior commander of the country's
largest guerrilla group in combat along the southern border with Ecuador.

The death of Raul Reyes, one of the rebels' highest-ranking
commanders, was a severe blow for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, or FARC, which has been waging an insurgency against the
government for the last four decades.

"This is the most important strike yet delivered against this
terrorist group," Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said to
reporters at a news conference in Bogota.

Mr. Reyes, the nom de guerre of Luis Edgar Devia, is the fourth senior
member of the FARC killed in the past year. Last September, Colombia's
government celebrated the killing of Tomas Medina Caracas, a commander
believed to control a large part of the FARC's smuggling operations in
eastern Colombia.

The United States, which provides Colombia with more than $600 million
a year in military aid, was offering a $5 million reward for the
capture of Mr. Reyes, 59, part of the FARC's seven-member secretariat
and believed to be a contender to succeed the group's top commander,
77-year-old Manuel Marulanda.

Intelligence operations led security forces to an area in southern
Putamayo Province where members of the FARC unit, the 48th Front, were
camped Friday night, the Defense Ministry said in a statement. Shortly
after midnight on Saturday, Colombia's air force attacked the camp in
a bombing raid.

FARC forces responded with fire from a camp on the Ecuadorian side of
the border, the ministry said, killing one Colombian soldier.
Colombia's air attack killed 17 guerrillas, including Mr. Reyes and
Guillermo Enrique Torres, a chief theoretician with the FARC, the
military said.

Colombia's government said the bodies of Mr. Reyes and Mr. Torres were
recovered in Ecuadorian territory and brought to Colombia on Saturday.
President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia informed his counterpart in
Ecuador, President Rafael Correa, of the operation, Colombia's Defense
Ministry said.

The military said it conducted its air strike from the Colombian side
of the border.

Mr. Reyes often served as a de facto spokesman for the FARC, receiving
emissaries and journalists in the group's jungle camps. He was among
the most powerful members of the secretariat, defending the group's
use of abductions and extortion to finance its activities.

The FARC, which also finances itself through cocaine trafficking, is
estimated to have as few as 6,000 to 8,000 combatants, down from
16,000 at the time of intense fighting in Colombia in 2001. Still, the
FARC remains a major presence in some rural parts of the country.

The focus now turns to Mr. Marulanda, whose real name is Pedro Antonio
Marin, who has been reported to be ill. A contender to succeed Mr.
Marulanda is thought to be Jorge Briceno Suarez, a hardline commander
known as "Mono Jojoy" in the eastern wing of the FARC.

The FARC is believed to hold some 700 captives, including more than 40
political hostages such as Ingrid Betancourt, a former presidential
candidate. President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has helped negotiate the
release of six of the FARC's captives in recent weeks.