Colombian Agents Tricked Guerillas Into Freeing Hostages
Wednesday July 2nd, 2008 / 23h47
BOGOTA (AFP)--A secret agent infiltrated Colombia's largest guerrilla group and tricked the rebels into believing their top leader had sent a helicopter to pick up 15 high-profile hostages, Colombia's defense minister said Thursday. The helicopter, however, belonged to the Colombian army, and inside was a team of intelligence agents sent to rescue the hostages, including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. nationals. The operation, code-named "Check" after the chess term, "will no doubt go down in history for its audacity," Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told reporters. Santos said an army intelligence agent had infiltrated the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) unit that was holding several hostages. "The operation was absolutely impeccable," Betancourt told Caracol private radio just hours after she was freed, as she described the ruse played by Colombian soldiers on the FARC rebels. "They spoke and dressed like the guerrillas," Betancourt said. She said the operation began at dawn, when the hostages were told they were being transferred. Some of the elite Colombian soldiers who took part in the operation had disguised themselves as rebels, even wearing T-shirts bearing the picture of legendary reolutionaty Ernesto "Che" Guevara, she said. The hostages only realized that they were being rescued when they were in the air and one of the soldiers pretending to be a guerrilla shouted out: "We are the Army of Colombia, you are free." The FARC had wanted to swap its high-profile hostages for 500 imprisoned guerrillas, including three held in the United States. The secret agent convinced the guerrillas to gather the hostages - being held at disparate locations for security purposes - at a single site so they would be picked up by a helicopter from a fictitious organization. The hostages were to be flown to southern Colombia "so they would supposedly go directly under the command of Alfonso Cano," the FARC's new leader, Santos said. Santos also said the FARC's seven-member secretariat had been infiltrated, but gave no further details. -Dow Jones Newswires, 201-938-5500 Click here to go to Dow Jones NewsPlus, a web front page of today's most important business and market news, analysis and commentary: http://www.djnewsplus.com/al?rnd=LW9whl%2BCMpgGy0CJvqg%2FuA%3D%3D. You can use this link on the day this article is published and the following day.
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