24 May 2008 - 18H23
Bogota says FARC number 1 is dead
Colombia's Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said on Saturday that he had intelligence indicating that the FARC guerillas' top commander Manuel Marulanda died on March 26 and that the authorities were still trying to confirm the information.
BOGOTA - Colombia's top FARC guerrilla commander has died according to a source and authorities are trying to confirm the details, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told the country's Semana weekly news magazine.
The source told authorities Manuel Marulanda, known as "Sureshot," died in late March, Santos said in an interview published on the magazine's Web site on Saturday.
"That is the latest information we have and we are corroborating that now," the minister said when asked whether the rebel leader had died.
Military officials could not immediately confirm the report.
Marulanda organized the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in the 1960s as a left-wing insurgency fighting for social justice. But after four decades of fighting the FARC has been weakened by President Alvaro Uribe's U.S.-backed security drive.
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