Colombia finally strikes at rebels' top leadership

By Hugh Bronstein

BOGOTA (Reuters) - The killing of two Colombian rebel commanders in less than a week, one betrayed and dismembered by his own bodyguard, has ended four decades of government failure to hit the guerrillas' top leadership.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, had never before lost a member of its seven-man secretariat, so the two deaths in quick succession were a historic blow to the communist insurgency.

Rebel fighters, harried by a six-year-old government offensive, are deserting in record numbers, providing intelligence to an army backed by billions of dollars in U.S. aid, including American military advisors who help plan strikes.

The guerrillas continue kidnapping and blowing up energy installations as part of the war but military officials believe the FARC is now slowly imploding.

Even opposition figures admit that conservative President Alvaro Uribe has begun to show long-awaited results.

Raul Reyes, the FARC's No. 2 leader, died in a March 1 raid carried out inside Ecuador that set off a regional diplomatic crisis. The army tracked Reyes down by intercepting a satellite phone call he made from along the Ecuador border.

Ivan Rios, another member of the FARC's secretariat, was shot dead last week by his security chief, who later told reporters that morale in the group is at an all-time low.

"It's acceptable to lose a leader like Reyes in an enemy attack, but the way Rios died shows the internal degradation of the FARC," said political analyst Alvaro Jimenez, a former member of the demobilized M-19 leftist rebel group.

"That's why Rios's death is the harder blow," he said.

Uribe was first elected in 2002 promising to crush the FARC. Investor confidence in Colombia is soaring and the president remains highly popular despite a scandal linking some of his closest political allies to right-wing death squads.

Many Colombians expect a counter-offensive from the rebel group as it tries to prove it still has strength, but some analysts are skeptical.

"How can FARC commanders plan an offensive if they can't talk on their phones and can't trust their own bodyguards?" said one Bogota-based diplomat.

The FARC, which started as a militant peasant movement in 1964, still controls wide rural areas in the south used to produce the cocaine that helps fund its revolution. Estimates of its fighting force range from 8,000 to 17,000.

TEMPTED BY REWARD MONEY

The government said it plans to pay a $2.6 million reward to the guerrilla known as "Rojas" for shooting his former boss Rios, and then chopping off his right hand to offer as proof.