By IANS
Bogota : Five Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels have been killed in fighting with the army in a mountainous area in western Colombia, the army said.
The clashes between the rebels and troops occurred Sunday in a rural area near Chaparral, located 300 km west of Bogota, the Army News Agency said.
Troops seized two rifles, three pistols, 13 field tents, five uniforms and ammunition in the operation.
The FARC, Colombia’s oldest and largest leftist guerrilla group, was founded in 1964 and today operates across a large swath of this Andean nation.
The rebel organisation has an estimated 20,000 fighters and is led by septuagenarian founder Manuel Marulanda, who is known as “Sureshot”.
President Alvaro Uribe’s administration has made fighting the FARC a top priority and has obtained billions in US aid for counterinsurgency operations.
The FARC is on both the US and European Union lists of terrorist groups. Drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping-for-ransom are the FARC’s main means of financing its operations.