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| - Colombia's rebel left-wing National Liberation Army (ELN) confirmed on Thursday the death of its commander Uriel in a military operation at the weekend. The death of the high-ranking rebel leader, whose real name was Andreas Vanegas, had already been announced by President Ivan Duque on Sunday following the operation in the country's northwest. "With revolutionary pain we confirm the fall of our comrade Uriel, who gave his life with great dignity to the great ideals of transformation, social justice, sovereignty and the future of humanity," said the ELN high command in a statement sent to AFP in Havana. Duque had described Uriel's death as "a particularly important blow" to the ELN, which he said was a "terrorist organization." The president said Vanegas, 41, was responsible for kidnappings, murders and recruiting minors for his Marxist guerrillas. Uriel was also accused of being behind a car bomb attack on a police academy in Bogota in January 2019 which killed 21 recruits. "Uriel's fall commits us even more to the purposes of change in Colombia and with humanity's most noble causes. That's the greatest honor and recognition we can give him," said the ELN. Uriel, who was active on social media, was one of the most notorious ELN leaders. After the police academy attack, Duque called off peace talks with the ELN that had been started under his predecessor Juan Manuel Santos and hosted by Cuba. The Choco region where Uriel operated is the scene of a turf war between the ELN and the Clan del Golfo, the largest drug cartel in the country. It is a major exit point for cocaine exports to Central America and the United States and also an area of illegal gold extraction, whose income, according to prosecutors, exceeds that of drug trafficking. The ELN, which is said to operate in about 10 percent of the country, has some 2,300 combatants and an extensive network of supporters in urban centers. It is the last formal guerrilla group left in the country after the government reached a peace agreement with the larger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in 2016. rd/ll/bc/ft
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