U.S. Southern Command Participated in the Release of Hostages in Colombia
In an action with few officially recognized precedents, the U.S. Southern Command participated in the release of eight people whom the armed group ELN was holding hostage in the Catatumbo region, in the department of Norte de Santander, bordering Venezuela.
President Abelardo de la Espriella reported on the social network X that “in a surgical precision offensive operation, our Military Forces, National Army, Air Force and National Police, with interagency intelligence, rescued eight Colombians who remained kidnapped by the ELN in a rural area of Convencion, Norte de Santander.”
The operation, the president explained, was achieved thanks to the fact that “Gaula men were inserted over the target point and carried out a rapid and forceful action that made it possible to return freedom to these eight people.” But the head of state made no mention of the participation of the Southern Command.
Police confirm participation of Southern Command
However, in recent hours it emerged that the public forces had precise, real-time information thanks to the support provided by the United States through the Southern Command and the DEA, which placed state-of-the-art equipment at the service of Colombia‘s Armed Forces that transmitted real-time images of the movements taking place at the previously defined target.
The Police, through Gaula (Unified Action Groups for Personal Freedom), confirmed that the U.S. Southern Command participated in the interagency operation. The Military Gaula deployed elite forces personnel to insert themselves into the risky mission carried out in the heart of Catatumbo.
Authorities knew that, in a rural area of Convencion, where the ELN operates, several people were being held hostage, and even that three police officers who were recently kidnapped in the Catatumbo region had been at the site. With certainty that they could rescue the eight hostages, they launched the operation in the early hours of this Tuesday, September 15.
The attack was directed against the ELN’s Camilo Torres Front. For military and police authorities, this is a direct blow against Silvana Guerrero, head of the Eastern War Front, who has appeared in different videos challenging the State and the public forces.
For the execution of the military action, U.S. authorities deployed a state-of-the-art Vector drone, which made it possible to obtain high-quality images of the house where the people deprived of their freedom were being held. The operation had been planned eight days earlier, when precise information was already available about the ELN members who were guarding the house.
Some of those released had been kidnapped for two years
This rescue operation is part of the actions to locate three police officers also kidnapped by the ELN weeks ago.
The same unofficial reports indicate that the operation was carried out in the early morning hours and that, upon seeing the large number of public forces personnel arriving by helicopter and the military and police deployment, the ELN guerrillas received orders not to engage in combat, abandoning the house where the hostages were being held.
The people released, according to the military, are individuals engaged in different activities and had been kidnapped for between one month and two years. There were also farmers who refused to comply with the guerrilla’s orders or workers from the area whom the ELN was enslaving, forcing them to perform tasks against their will.
The participation of the Southern Command in this operation also takes place within a broader context related to Colombia’s entry into the Shield of the Americas, a U.S.-led initiative that seeks to wage a direct fight against drug trafficking and terrorism on the continent.
The event also constitutes a new notification to armed groups that they are being monitored and that at any moment they may become targets of lethal attacks.