Alfonso Cano

(Newser) - The head of Colombia's FARC rebels was killed in a military bombing yesterday, the latest blow to Latin America's last major rebel group, reports the AP . "The fingerprints matched," said a senior official, calling the raid a "standard military operation." President Juan Manuel Santos...

(Newser) - Though Alfonso Cano, the new commander of Colombia’s FARC rebels, is a bookish intellectual, don’t expect a new push towards government negotiations, sources tell the Washington Post. Cano, who turned to Marx in college after a middle-class upbringing, would be uniquely suited to push peaceful political action—but...

(Newser) - FARC chief Manuel Marulanda’s death might not be a fatal blow to Colombia's Marxist rebels, but the Economist sees an organization on the way out anyway. In its mid-'90s heyday, FARC boasted a force of 19,000 soldiers that threatened Bogota, the capital; today, the group is fragmented, with...