Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Tuesday ordered troops to hunt down and rescue a state governor who authorities said was kidnapped by leftist FARC guerrillas in a brazen night-time assault on his home. The rebel kidnapping of a governor on Monday underscores how Latin America's oldest guerrilla insurgency is still capable of high-profile operations despite years of being battered by Colombia's US-backed military offensive.
Colombian officials said the Teofilo Forero unit of the FARC rebel group was likely responsible for the kidnapping of Luis Cuellar, the governor of Caqueta province. One police guard was killed in the assault on Cuellar's home. "Every military and police effort must be made to ensure a rescue, we cannot keep being held captive by the whim of terrorists, terrorists who bathe the country in blood and who trick us everyday," Uribe told reporters.
The FARC was once a rebel army controlling large parts of Colombia. But the bombings and kidnappings it once carried out have eased as Uribe sent troops to take back areas under control of armed groups who turned to cocaine trafficking to finance their operations. Men in uniforms and carrying rifles blasted open the door of Cuellar's home before snatching him, Caqueta state governor's secretary Edilberto Ramon Endo told reporters.
The FARC is still holding 24 police and soldiers hostage, some kidnapped more than a decade ago and kept in jungle camps where they are often chained up and forced to keep on the run to evade army patrols and aerial bombardments.