Lend A Hand To FARC

Colombia announced today that FARC could use a hand. After all, the Colombian government has one that formerly belonged to one of their to commanders.

BOGOTA, Colombia - A top rebel leader was killed by his own chief of security, who gave Colombian troops the leader's severed hand as proof, the defense minister said Friday.

Ivan Rios was the second top rebel killed in a week, a major setback for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the country's largest rebel force.

No top Colombian rebel leader had ever been slain until Raul Reyes was killed Saturday in a cross-border raid by Colombian troops into Ecuador that set off an international diplomatic crisis.

"The FARC has suffered a new, major blow," Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told reporters, calling Rios' death "yet another demonstration that the FARC is falling apart."

He said troops launched an operation designed to capture Rios on Feb. 17 after receiving tips that he was in a mountainous area straddling the western Colombian provinces of Caldas and Antioquia, and engaged the guerrillas' outer security ring seven times.

Thursday night, he said, a guerrilla known as Rojas came to the troops with Rios' severed right hand, laptop computer and ID, saying he had killed his boss three days earlier. Rojas handed himself over to the soldiers.

A couple of FARC bigwigs sent to the afterlife in only a week. Things are beginning to unravel for that gang of drug traffickers. No wonder (T)Hugo Chavez is backing off from his threats against Colombia. He's been backing a loser.