Paranoid FARC executes 26 of its own

So paranoid is the Colombian FARC guerrilla group that it executed 26 of its own combatants - more than a third of an entire unit of 70 fighters.

And that was before last week's hostage rescue. The pace of executions, according to a former hostage, was painfully slow. They took place over a five-month period of internal tribunals, where commanders tried to root out traitors from their ranks.

With hundreds of FARC members deserting or defecting to the government every month, taking with them priceless intelligence about the internal workings of the organization, the command structure is eating itself alive. Defectors helped military intelligence understand the anxieties of individual FARC commanders, allowing the army to build psychological profiles and devise ways to exploit them to save the hostages.

Those defectors, plus broken communications and internal paranoia, have been an important asset to the army. Colombian military intelligence officers who planned the rescue said that the FARC's own disarray and demoralization have been the army's best counterinsurgency weapon.

Another victory to apply to the fight against Islamist extremists. Does anyone remember how, not so long ago, American and international politicians were denouncing US and Colombian counterterrorism policy as wrong-headed, needlessly tough, and so on? That the FARC was too powerful to defeat? That our Colombian allies didn't have their act together and didn't deserve our support? That our whole approach was misguided? Where are those politicians today, so long after having helped boost the FARC's morale?

Click here for a good Washington Post recap of the rescue planning.  (Photo: Hundreds of thousands march against FARC in Cali, Colombia.)

Comments

[Jim Dolbow]

Amen to "Another victory to apply to the fight against Islamist extremists."