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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -raid.html#
The jungle raid which resulted in the death of Colombian FARC leader Mono Jojoy was accomplished after agents fitted his boot with a GPS tracking device.
Jojoy, who was known as ‘Colombia’s bin Laden’, suffered from diabetes, which combined with the rigours of living in the jungle had resulted in injuries to his feet.
It was for this reason he was forced to order a special pair of boots – in a message which was intercepted by Colombian intelligence.
As Operation Sodoma swung into action, government agents were able to intercept the boots and rig one of them with a tracking device, El Mundo reported.
Jojoy’s fate was sealed the moment he put the boots on, pinpointing his exact location to the Colombians.
The operation was a political and military victory for President Juan Manuel Santos, a former defence minister who took office in August vowing to keep up a hard line with the guerrillas and further reduce violence from the waning war.
Santos, who was in New York attending the annual U.N. General Assembly meetings, received the news while jogging in Central Park.
Explaining the significance of Jojoy's death, he said: ‘It is as if they told New Yorkers that Osama bin Laden had fallen.
‘This is is the beginning of the end of 40 years of war in Colombia.’
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, is at its weakest in decades after eight years of a U.S.-backed security campaign to hunt down rebel chiefs and drive guerrillas back into remote jungles and mountains.
The loss of Jojoy, the FARC's veteran military boss also known as Jorge Suarez Briceno, is unlikely to end Colombia's long war. But it will restrict the FARC's ability to carry out strategic attacks as they turn increasingly to hit-and-run tactics and protecting their commanders.
Jojoy, 59, was killed in an air strike and ground raid involving more than 30 planes and 25 helicopters, the army said. As many as 20 other rebels were killed in the operation in the Macarena region, one of the FARC's last strongholds.
The rebel leader's hidden camp was a warren of tunnels including a concrete bunker to protect him from air strikes, Colombia's defence minister told reporters.
The military retrieved 14 computers and 60 USB storage devices from the bunker, which could aid further military efforts against the FARC, Santos said.
Urban attacks, bombings and kidnappings have dropped sharply in recent years and the FARC now largely resorts to ambushes, improvised landmines and home-made mortars to attack army and police patrols rather than engaging troops directly.
However, suspected FARC rebels on Thursday assaulted part of Colombia's largest coal mine, Cerrejon, intimidating workers and destroying vehicles in a rare attack on a foreign company.
The mine, operated by BHP Billiton, Anglo American and Xstrata, reported no major damage and operations were normal.
Jojoy, known for his trademark black beret and thick mustache, was a member of the FARC's seven-member secretariat. A military expert, he was outranked only by Alfonso Cano, the top FARC commander who the army says it is close to capturing.
The FARC's founder, Manuel Marulanda, died in 2008, and two other senior commanders were killed that year.
Once a force of 17,000 fighters, desertions have thinned its ranks to around 8,000. Many units are now engaged in cocaine trafficking.
For Santos, the death of the FARC's top military commander was good news as he seeks to consolidate security gains and push through reforms, including an overhaul of oil royalties, the health system and fiscal regulations.
A White House spokesman called Jojoy's death 'an important victory for Colombia' and said President Barack Obama would discuss it with Santos when they meet on Friday in New York.
'Although the FARC may try to respond with further attacks, Jojoy's death further underlines how the FARC has now passed a point of no return that will see it decompose further into smaller, local outfits,' said Robert Monks, a senior analyst with IHS Jane's consultancy.
Jojoy spent more than three decades in the FARC and was an avid student of military strategy. He was accused of directing some of the FARC's most deadly and high-profile operations. He was the mastermind of the kidnapping of three U.S. contractors who were later rescued in a military raid in 2008.
Once a portly figure, he has looked more gaunt and thin in recent photographs after years in hiding.
Colombia was for long seen as a failing state, but the level of violence has eased dramatically and foreign investment has grown fivefold since 2002, when former President Alvaro Uribe began a hard-line campaign against the rebels.
Better military intelligence and troop mobility with helicopters have restricted FARC communications and its command structure. Informants and bounty payments have allowed authorities to infiltrate rebel ranks.
Its fighters are still capable of damaging strikes, however, and work with criminal gangs to protect their drug smuggling operations in rural areas.
Earlier this month, eight police died in a rebel raid on a remote town and guerrillas killed 14 officers in a rocket attack on a police patrol.
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