{"id":72219,"date":"2018-12-22T17:47:08","date_gmt":"2018-12-22T16:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=72219"},"modified":"2018-12-22T17:52:26","modified_gmt":"2018-12-22T16:52:26","slug":"colombia-rebel-leader-and-horrendous-drug-boss-walter-guacho-arizala-killed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=72219","title":{"rendered":"Colombia rebel leader and ‘horrendous’ drug boss Walter ‘Guacho’ Arizala killed"},"content":{"rendered":"

A left-wing rebel and one of Colombia’s “most horrendous criminals” has been killed following a manhunt lasting months.<\/p>\n

Walter Arizala, known as “Guacho”, led a few dozen guerillas from the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) group.<\/p>\n

The US backed an effort to trace him following the kidnap and murder of three Ecuadorian journalists earlier this year.<\/p>\n

In a TV address, Colombia’s president Ivan Duque revealed Arizala was killed in a “heroic operation” carried out by a special forces unit.<\/p>\n

It means many Colombians “can now sleep peacefully because one of the most horrendous criminals our country has ever known has fallen”, the president added.<\/p>\n

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\"Colombian<\/div>

\nImage:<\/span>
\nColombian president Ivan Duque announced Arizala’s death<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Arizala, 29, joined FARC as a teenager and had previously joined a peace process aimed at ending Colombia’s long history of political warfare.<\/p>\n

However, he returned to the jungle last year and is believed to have been smuggling cocaine to Mexican drug cartels.<\/p>\n

He was killed in the dense jungle border region of Narino, which is home to Colombia’s largest harvest of illegal coca plants.<\/p>\n

Last year, land dedicated to the crop – used to make cocaine – soared to the largest amount on record at 807 sq miles, according to a White House report.<\/p>\n

Colombia is the world’s biggest cocaine producer.<\/p>\n

Arizala is believed to have ordered the abduction and murder of journalist Javier Ortega, 32, photographer Paul Rivas, 45, and their 60-year-old driver Efrain Segarra in March and April.<\/p>\n

They worked for El Comercio, a daily newspaper in Ecuador’s capital Quito, and were covering a story about violence along the border.<\/p>\n

The murders prompted both Colombia and Ecuador to order a military manhunt for their killers.<\/p>\n

At least 15 deaths have been blamed on Arizala’s group, which is known as the Oliver Sinisterra Front.<\/p>\n

Ricardo Rivas said he regretted Arizala died before revealing how his brother Paul was killed.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think the death of another human being is something we should celebrate,” he told local radio.<\/p>\n

Most FARC rebels disbanded under a 2016 peace deal, but more than 1,000 dissidents remain active.<\/p>\n

They were founded in 1964 as a Marxist-Leninist force.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A left-wing rebel and one of Colombia’s “most horrendous criminals” has been killed following a manhunt lasting months. Walter Arizala, known as “Guacho”, led a few dozen guerillas from the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) group. The US backed an effort to trace him following the kidnap and murder of three Ecuadorian journalists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72220,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[9105,8406,9106],"class_list":["post-72219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-more","tag-colombia","tag-international","tag-walter-guacho-arizala"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}