Colombian forces killed the Farc rebel leader Alfonso Cano last night in the biggest blow yet to Latin America's longest insurgency, the Defense Ministry said.
While unlikely to bring a swift end to nearly five decades of war in the Andean nation, his death will further damage the rebels' ability to co-ordinate the high profile attacks that have brought it worldwide notoriety.
There were few immediate details of the killing, which occurred during combat, according to a ministry official.
"It's true he's dead," he told Reuters. Even prior to its decapitation, the Farc, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, had been battered by a US-backed military campaign that began in 2002, and the waning insurgency has lost several other key commanders in the past four years.
The death of Cano (63), who took over leadership of the rebels after their founder died in 2008, is a major strategic victory for president Juan Manuel Santos, who came to office last year promising to keep up a hard-line stance against Farc.
The government had offered up to $3.7 million for information that would lead to his capture. The death of the bespectacled and bearded rebel commander, a former student activist and communist youth member, followed the killing late last year of one of his main lieutenants, Mono Jojoy, in a bombardment and assault on his camp.
"It's going to be more and more hard for them to get through the next years," said Alfredo Rangel, an independent security analyst.
"There's no leader with the intensity that Cano has and it will be hard to get someone to replace him. In the short term there will be a lack of leadership. The end won't be automatic or immediate but we are coming to the end of the Farc."
Cano went from being a middle-class youth in the capital Bogota to the top Farc leader after taking part in peace talks in neighbouring Venezuela and Mexico during the 1990s.
The strike that killed him underscored how Colombia's military can now attack rebel leaders deep in the mountains and jungles.
Once a powerful force controlling large swaths of Colombia, the Farc is at its weakest in decades.
Violence, bombings and kidnapping from the conflict have eased sharply as Colombian troops use better intelligence, US training and technology to take the fight to the rebels.
Foreign investment in Colombia has surged since the military crackdown began in 2002, especially in oil and mining.
Reuters