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In an address this Sunday from Quibdó, President Iván Duque confirmed that the third leader of the ELN’s Western War Front, Andrés Felipe Vanegas Londoño, alias Uriel, was killed in the morning in the middle of a joint operation carried out in the rural area of Nóvita. , Crashed.
Within the framework of Operation Odín, described by the Head of State as “meticulous”, carried out by the Army, the Police, the Navy and the Air Force, with the support of the Prosecutor’s Office, “a dangerous criminal who was author of crimes such as kidnappings, murders of social leaders, policemen and soldiers and forced recruitment, among others ”.
The president added that it was “a very important coup: one of the most visible heads of the ELN has fallen” and recalled that “this criminal was one of those who claimed the murder last year of the 22 cadets of the School General Santander ”.
He warned that Vanegas “felt untouchable, but we reached his den. The forces acted with all their capacity ”.
Before what happened, he sent a message “to criminal organizations: we will continue to stalk them, that is why the call is for demobilization.
He noted that the guerrilla’s camp was reached for information from the citizens, for which a reward of $ 500 million will be paid.
“Terrorism is the weapon of cowards, of those who seek to sow anxiety,” concluded Duque.
Vanegas, with 25 years of experience in the ELN, had against him an arrest warrant for aggravated homicide, aggravated kidnapping and rebellion, reported the Military Forces.
“He had a direct line with Pablo Beltrán, a member of the Central Command, Coce, and he used social networks as a national and international media platform to spread the criminal actions, proposals and propaganda of this terrorist organization, in which he directly and constantly challenged the Colombian state with the intention of generating destabilization scenarios, especially in urban centers, ”the statement read.
‘Uriel’ was one of those who recognized the responsibility of the ELN in the attack against the Santander General School, in which 22 cadets died, and accepted the participation of urban networks in the violent attacks against the CAI of Bogotá in early September past.
Prosecutor Francisco Barbosa said that in the middle of a raid on a house in the Barranconsito village, as the uniformed officers approached, “a confrontation occurs in which alias Uriel is killed, who was linked to the urban terrorism structures that had hit the cities in last September and November 2019 ”.
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