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Washington Times
March 7, 2008
Pg. 6
Inside The Ring
By Bill Gertz
Victory over FARC
U.S. counterterrorism officials are privately cheering the Colombian military raid that killed Raul Reyes, a senior commander of the notorious FARC terrorist group last week.
"This was a major victory for the United States in the war on terror," one military official said. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia "is one of the top ten designated global terrorist that is as much a target and focal point of the [global war on terror] as is al Qaeda."
U.S. military officials said the Colombian raid into Ecuador that killed Reyes on Saturday involved a joint special operations group called CCOPE and included commandos from three elements known as the Commandos, the Lancero group and naval commandos. The paramilitary component was followed by Colombian National Police who took over the scene and recovered laptop computers and other information about the communist terror group.
The evidence and intelligence shows that Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez are providing a safe haven to the terrorists, with Mr. Chavez also helping with material support.
"We have evidence of collusion, evidence of Chavez funding the FARC to the tune of $300 million," one U.S. military officer said.
One document uncovered from Reyes' computer revealed that a group of "gringos," or Americans, was dealing with FARC through Ecuadorean intermediaries.
The Americans were quoted in the FARC leaders' document as saying that Sen. Barack Obama will be the next president and that he does not support Plan Colombia, an anti-drug and aid strategy to back the Colombian government, or a U.S. free trade agreement with the country.
Bill Gertz covers national security affairs.
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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
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