BOGOTA: Colombia’s most-wanted guerrilla leader Ivan Mordisco threatened to disrupt the country’s 2026 presidential election, in a video released on Tuesday, in response to deadly military strikes against his armed group.
The military operations were part of President Gustavo Petro’s intensifying attacks against groups involved in cocaine trafficking, following fierce pressure from US President Donald Trump over his alleged inaction on drug production.
Mordisco, the leader of a dissident faction of the former FARC guerrillas, said the strikes that have killed dozens were a “declaration of war.”
In the video, Mordisco warned of repercussions for next year’s election, which will determine the successor to the country’s left-wing president who is constitutionally barred from running again.
“We wanted the 2026 electoral process to be as smooth as possible, but given the advance of warmongering actors, we have no choice but to take a stand,” he said.
Authorities have confirmed military strikes have claimed the lives of 15 minors since August, sparking public outrage.
The teenagers had been abducted by the same armed groups in the soldiers’ crosshairs.
Petro’s policies were “pandering to the gringos, who are thirsty for the blood of Colombian children,” Mordisco said, referring to Americans.
The president has launched a manhunt with a million-dollar reward to capture Mordisco, whom he likens to cocaine baron Pablo Escobar who was slain in 1993.
Mordisco leads a dissident faction that rejected the 2016 peace agreement that led to the disarmament of the former FARC. His group controls cocaine production in several regions of the country.
The lead-up to Colombia’s 2026 election has already been marred by violence, with candidate and opposition senator Miguel Uribe shot while campaigning in June. He died in hospital in August and police blamed the shooting on guerrillas.
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Colombia’s top guerrilla leader threatens vote disruption
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Colombia’s top guerrilla leader threatens vote disruption
- The president has launched a manhunt with a million-dollar reward to capture Mordisco, whom he likens to cocaine baron Pablo Escobar who was slain in 1993
Russian strikes kill 1 as US and Ukraine officials wrap up third day of diplomatic talks
KYIV: Russian missile and drone attacks overnight into Sunday killed at least one person in Ukraine, after US and Ukrainian officials wrapped up a third day of talks aimed at ending the war.
A man was killed in a drone attack on Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region Saturday night, local officials said, while a combined missile and drone attack on infrastructure in the central city of Kremenchuk caused power and water outages. Kremenchuk is home to one of Ukraine’s biggest oil refineries and is an industrial hub.
Kyiv and its Western allies say Russia is trying to cripple the Ukrainian power grid and deny civilians access to heat, light and running water for a fourth consecutive winter, in what Ukrainian officials call “weaponizing” the cold.
The latest round of attacks came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday evening he had a “substantive phone call” with American officials engaged in talks with a Ukrainian delegation in Florida. He said he had been given an update over the phone by US and Ukrainian officials at the talks.
“Ukraine is determined to keep working in good faith with the American side to genuinely achieve peace,” Zelensky wrote on social media.
Speaking Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum, US President Donald Trump’s outgoing Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, said efforts to end the war were in “the last 10 meters.”
He said a deal depended on the two outstanding issues of “terrain, primarily the Donbas,” and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
Russia controls most of Donbas, its name for Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk, which, along with two southern regions, it illegally annexed three years ago. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is in an area that has been under Russian control since early in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and is not in service, but it needs reliable power to cool its six shutdown reactors and spent fuel, to avoid any catastrophic nuclear incidents.
Kellogg is due to leave his post in January and was not present at the talks in Florida.
Separately, officials said the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Germany would participate in a meeting with Zelensky in London on Monday.
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov welcomed the Trump administration’s new national security strategy. In comments published Sunday by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, he said the strategy was “encouraging.”
“There are statements there against confrontation and in favor of dialogue and building good relations,” he said.
The document released Friday by the White House makes clear that the US wants to improve its relationship with Russia after years of Moscow being treated as a global pariah and that ending the war is a core US interest to “reestablish strategic stability with Russia.”
A man was killed in a drone attack on Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region Saturday night, local officials said, while a combined missile and drone attack on infrastructure in the central city of Kremenchuk caused power and water outages. Kremenchuk is home to one of Ukraine’s biggest oil refineries and is an industrial hub.
Kyiv and its Western allies say Russia is trying to cripple the Ukrainian power grid and deny civilians access to heat, light and running water for a fourth consecutive winter, in what Ukrainian officials call “weaponizing” the cold.
The latest round of attacks came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday evening he had a “substantive phone call” with American officials engaged in talks with a Ukrainian delegation in Florida. He said he had been given an update over the phone by US and Ukrainian officials at the talks.
“Ukraine is determined to keep working in good faith with the American side to genuinely achieve peace,” Zelensky wrote on social media.
Speaking Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum, US President Donald Trump’s outgoing Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, said efforts to end the war were in “the last 10 meters.”
He said a deal depended on the two outstanding issues of “terrain, primarily the Donbas,” and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
Russia controls most of Donbas, its name for Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk, which, along with two southern regions, it illegally annexed three years ago. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is in an area that has been under Russian control since early in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and is not in service, but it needs reliable power to cool its six shutdown reactors and spent fuel, to avoid any catastrophic nuclear incidents.
Kellogg is due to leave his post in January and was not present at the talks in Florida.
Separately, officials said the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Germany would participate in a meeting with Zelensky in London on Monday.
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov welcomed the Trump administration’s new national security strategy. In comments published Sunday by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, he said the strategy was “encouraging.”
“There are statements there against confrontation and in favor of dialogue and building good relations,” he said.
The document released Friday by the White House makes clear that the US wants to improve its relationship with Russia after years of Moscow being treated as a global pariah and that ending the war is a core US interest to “reestablish strategic stability with Russia.”
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