Details on Colombia Hostage Operation Right Out of Spy Thriller (Betancourt)

[Lex]

En gelukkig was J. Mc Cain, in de buurt om de Amerikaanse gijzelaars een lift naar huis te geven. ::)

[hudinie]

Dat klopt in de groep van de Farc waren ook verschillende personen geinfiltreerd, het was gewoon een heel slim opgezette
operatie waar de colombiaanse geheime dienst in totaal een jaar mee bezig is geweest.

[Lex]

In de verslaggeving door de diverse media (USA/UK/FR/NL) wordt gesproken over het "infiltreren" door Colombiaanse strijdkrachten in de FARC.

[KapiteinRob]

De gegijzelden werden bevrijd zonder een schot te lossen, de colombiaanse comandos waren "verkleed" als leden van een
buitenlandse hulporganisatie die de gevangenen naar commandant CANO moesten brengen.
De leden van het Commando hebben hiervoor zelfs acteer lessen gehad en deden alsof ze nauwelijks spaans spraken
....De Farc trapte er met eigen ogen in....en gaven de gijzelaars mee en 2 man van de ontvoerders gingen mee....
eenmaal in de lucht sloegen de commandos toe en overmeesterden de ontvoerders, en deelde aan de gijzelaars mee
dat ze vrij waren, die konden het zelf ook nauwelijks geloven.

Mwa, ik weet niet wat ik van zo'n operatie moet vinden; nu hebben die hulporganisaties een probleem. Het komt enigzins over als bv. misbruik maken van het Rode kruis......

[hudinie]

De gegijzelden werden bevrijd zonder een schot te lossen, de colombiaanse comandos waren "verkleed" als leden van een
buitenlandse hulporganisatie die de gevangenen naar commandant CANO moesten brengen.
De leden van het Commando hebben hiervoor zelfs acteer lessen gehad en deden alsof ze nauwelijks spaans spraken
....De Farc trapte er met eigen ogen in....en gaven de gijzelaars mee en 2 man van de ontvoerders gingen mee....
eenmaal in de lucht sloegen de commandos toe en overmeesterden de ontvoerders, en deelde aan de gijzelaars mee
dat ze vrij waren, die konden het zelf ook nauwelijks geloven.

Dit bericht heb ik net uit Colombia gehoord van bevriende militairen.

HUDINIE

[VandeWiel]

Nog een blogpost van Douglas Farah die wat extra insight geeft.

Vooral dit stukje is veelzeggend: "As I wrote in this paper published by the NEFA Foundation just before the hostages were freed, the FARC is in a period of decline that will likely end with its implosion and fragmentation into small criminal groups."



Jul 3, 08:29
Why the Colombian Rescue Mission Matters
As my colleagues Jonathan Winer and Aaron Mannes have written on the Counterterrorism Blog, the spectacular operation by the Colombian military to rescue 15 high-profile hostages was a tremendous blow to the FARC in Colombia.

In the interest of full disclosure, Ingrid Bentancourt is a friend of mine, and I have written about her in the past because of her tremendous courage in acting as a beacon of light in a narco-corrupted congress, and in defiance of her own political party. On a personal level, this was tremendously good news.

As I wrote in this paper published by the NEFA Foundation just before the hostages were freed, the FARC is in a period of decline that will likely end with its implosion and fragmentation into small criminal groups.

Since March the FARC has been pummeled, lost three of its seven members of the directorate, and now, its prize hostages.

The FARC's historic leader, Manuel Marulanda, the unifying force of the organization, is dead. His hand-picked successor, Raul Reyes, was killed in an army attack on his camp in Ecuador. Another member of the high command, Ivan Reyes, was killed by his own bodyguards, who collected the reward money.

Dozens of senior and mid-level commanders have deserted, including Karina, the highest-ranking woman in the FARC's ranks.
Now, a brilliantly executed rescue operation by a military that has often (and rightly) been accused of gross incompetence and corruption, takes the one thing of value (besides the cocaine laboratories) the FARC still had.

This is not random, but the product of years of work in human and signal intelligence, almost always hand-in-hand with U.S. counterparts. It is worth studying because it was done right.

Here are some of the highlights from my sources who are familiar with the operation:

The operation took more than three years to develop. The penetration of the rebel rank over time provided much of the human intelligence that was vitally needed. The infiltrators worked their way up the ranks, until they had access to both the force that protected the hostages and the FARC's general secretariat. The reports of the undercover operatives were wedded, with U.S. help, to signal intelligence, and the combination of the two fed off each other.

This type of patience is extraordinary in operations these days. There was also a systematic debriefing of captured FARC members and deserters. It was not long ago when the military simply killed everyone captured-not only a severe human rights violation, but countless lost opportunities to develop intelligence on the FARC structure.

Finally, the FARC's key weaknesses-communications and the fact that many members were motivated by money rather than ideology-were identified and exploited to maximum effect.

On a macro sense, that will be beneficial to Colombia and the region, because the coherence of the group will be permanently ruptured and it will no longer present a threat to the state.

On a local and regional level internally, however, crime will likely get worse, local kidnappings will escalate and local criminal groups will get an infusion of well-trained and well-armed members in their ranks.

The war is not over, but several important battles have been one. The new leadership of the FARC under Alfonso Cano already was under significant pressure to demonstrate it could carry out significant operations. This will be even harder now.

One must also not forget the rest of the hostages still being held by the FARC. Their fate is precarious now, and any rescue operation will be much more difficult because of the success of this one.

But, one has to say, it was one hell of an operation. My hat is off and my gratitude deep to all who participated.

POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH


http://www.douglasfarah.com/article/371/why-the-colombian-rescue-mission-matters.com

[Mourning]

Ja, dit is het soort nieuws waar ik graag wakker bij wordt  :). De FARC is overigens nog lang niet verslagen, maar is wel de laatste jaren een aantal zware slagen toegebracht door de uitschakeling van een groot deel van haar leiders als het overlopen van een behoorlijke hoeveelheid strijders.

[hudinie]

Fantastisch !!!!!!!!!! ook voor het hele land daar, ook alle colombianen hier in Nederland zijn blij.
Hopen dat het snel gebeurd is met de FARC.
viva colombia viva la paz !!!!

[VandeWiel]

Details on Colombia Hostage Operation Right Out of Spy Thriller

First accounts on the rescue operation, now being provided by Colombian military officials, while still veiled on some key points, suggest that Colombia carried out a spectacularly successful sting operation in which Colombian commandos pretended to be FARC officials come to take the hostages to a new location for a possible diplomatic negotiated exchange.

According to Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos in his Bogota news conference, Colombia infiltrated FARC's 1st Squad and Secretariat. How that infitration contributed to the commando operation was not specified, beyond apparently providing the geographic location of the hostages. Whatever the mechanism -- government agents run inside FARC? -- Colombian intelligence tricked the FARC into believing that the hostages, who had been divided in three groups by the FARC, should be brought together in a single group to be handed over to FARC leader Alfonso Cano for a possible diplomatic, negotiated solution to the hostage crisis that would achieve FARC political objectives. As a result, FARC's high command agreed to travel with the hostages as a means of transferring them to Cano on a helicopter that actually belonged to the Colombian military and was actually manned by Colombian intelligence personnel.

According to Minister Santos, not only were all of the hostages safely rescued, but two senior FARC officials and some 15 other FARC soldiers were arrested in the process, also without violence.

In short, based on the facts made public so far, Colombia appears to have conducted a sting operation straight out of a spy thriller which actually worked, rescuing the hostages without a single shot being fired, dealing FARC a devastating blow.


Of note, CNN has reported that Senator McCain and President Bush were briefed about the operation ahead of time by the Colombians, which took place while Senator McCain was in country. One can only hope that no one will seek to gain partisan political advantage out of what Ingrid Betancourt has termed an "impeccable operation," and a "perfect operation," liberating hostages without any concessions to terrorists.

Ingrid Betancourt is now calling on FARC to end the practice of taking hostages and to move into a process of national unity that allows all hostages to come back safe and sound.

This is a classic demonstration of how a country can use a mixture of law enforcement, intelligence, military, diplomatic and other mechanisms together, with a great deal of patience and tenacity, to achieve profound results against terrorism. It's an operation that needs to be studied, understood, to see what its lessons are for handling other hostage situations and other terrorist groups.

In the meantime, the US and Colombia have a great deal of further work to do to deal with the underlying narcotics problem, which remains a profound challenge for Colombia for the long term. But this is a day of celebration for 15 people held hostage in the jungle and now restored to freedom, and all those who helped to make it possible.

July 2, 2008 06:22 PM    Print




http://counterterrorismblog.org/2008/07/details_on_colombia_hostage_op.php