Rebel Guerrilla Leader of Colombia, Alfanso Cano killed in Government Bombing

The leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC),  Guillermo Leon Saenz alias Alfanso Cano was killed in a government bombing raid in the Cauca department, southwest Colombia in the first week of November 2011. The guerrilla leader's body was found in the municipality of Suarez.

Alfanso Cano was a rebel leader with both political experience and military credibility. 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.

He took over the leadership of the rebel group after founder Pedro Antonio Marin Marin, alias Manuel Marulanda died of natural causes in May 2008.

Cano had been the country's top target since September 2010, when the group's military chief was killed. The government offered up to $3.7m (£2.3m) for information that would lead to his capture.

About FARC

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC is a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary guerrilla organization based in Colombia which is involved in the Colombian armed conflict. FARC is a peasant army which claims to represent the rural poor in a struggle against Colombia's wealthier classes, and opposes United States influence in Colombia. It funds itself principally through ransom kidnappings, gold miningand production and distribution of illegal drugs.

The group is on a US list of terrorist organisations and the Colombian government’s military campaign, which began in 2002, has been backed by the American administration.

Current Position of FARC

The FARC rebels lost four member of the ruling Secretariat since 2008, thereby suffering major blows to the leadership of the guerrilla army. After Cano, there is no one with the profile to keep the FARC together and fragmentation and criminalization is expected to follow. As a result any further peace process with the government would deliver only a fraction of the rebel ranks.

Cano’s killing is the latest in a series of blows delivered to Latin America's last remaining leftist rebel army that began in March 2008, when the FARC's foreign minister, Raul Reyes, was killed in a bombing across the border in Ecuador.

FARC's revered co-founder, Manuel Marulanda, died in a mountain hideout of a heart attack. Later, Mono Jojoy was killed in late 2010.

Cano's death is a strategic victory for President Juan Manuel Santos who came to office in 2010 with a promise to keep up a hard-line stance against the guerrillas.