At least 19 people have been killed in an air strike on a suspected rebel camp in Colombian province of Guaviare, according to the country’s military.
The attack targeted a dissident faction of the Farc rebel group, which engages in drug trafficking.
Colombia’s left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, had in the past been reluctant to use air strikes to hit rebel camps but following the breakdown of peace talks with several of Colombia’s armed groups, he gave the green light for the military offensive.
The air strike comes after the Trump administration accused Petro of allowing the drugs trade to expand, which the Colombian president has denied.
Colombian Defence Minister Pedro Sánchez said that President Petro had authorised the air strike after learning of “the imminent threat [the group] posed to the population and the security forces”.
Sánchez said that the camp belonged to members of a dissident group led by a commander known by the alias of Iván Mordisco.
Mordisco once formed part of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) but broke away from the rebel group as it negotiated a peace deal with the government, which he did not support.
He is considered to be the most powerful dissident rebel leader in Colombia, whose group engages in illegal mining and extortion as well as drug trafficking.
Defence Minister Sánchez described Mordisco as “one of the most dangerous criminals and drug traffickers” in the country.
During the military operation, the security forces also detained three people and freed three children who had been recruited by the group.
The forced recruitment of children by armed groups has been on the rise in recent years in Colombia according to rights groups, which have documented how children as young as nine are kidnapped, or lured away from their parents with false promises.
After Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president, was sworn in, he opened peace talks with a number of armed groups in an attempt to make good on his campaign promise to bring “total peace” to the country.
Mordisco’s group was one of those that entered into talks, but they broke down after six months when Mordisco led a walk-out.
The government blames the group for a deadly explosive attack on a military facility in the city of Cali in August.
Following that explosion, Petro described Mordisco as “a drug trafficker disguised as a revolutionary”.
Petro is under pressure by the United States to combat drug trafficking.
Colombia is the world’s biggest producer of cocaine and the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says Petro “has allowed drug cartels to flourish and refused to stop this activity”.
Last month, the US government imposed financial sanctions on the Colombian president.
Petro in turn has accused the United States government of “murder” over the US strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific allegedly carrying drugs.
On Tuesday, he again expressed his opposition to the US strikes – in which at least 76 people have been killed – and ordered his government to suspend intelligence sharing with US security agencies.
In his post on X, he said that “the fight against drugs must be subordinated to the human rights of the Caribbean people”.
