Colombia Air Strike Kills Eight In Anti-Gang Operation

At least eight suspected members of Colombia’s largest felony organisation, the Gulf Clan, have been killed in a navy air strike within the nation’s north-western Antioquia division.

Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella introduced the operation on Wednesday, saying it focused a camp operated by a faction of the felony group within the rural space of Tarazá.

Among these killed was Haminton Mosquera, additionally identified by the alias “Negro Perea”, whom the President recognized as one of many 10 precedence targets of the nation’s safety forces.

De la Espriella mentioned he personally authorised the bombing, which was carried out by the Army and Air Force with intelligence help from the National Police.

According to the President, Mosquera was suspected of ordering assaults towards safety personnel, together with the killing of a police officer in Tarazá in 2025.

The operation, named Nehemías, additionally resulted within the seizure of 5 rifles, two pistols, 4 anti-personnel mines and communication gear, whereas a camp allegedly utilized by the group was destroyed.

In a put up on X saying the operation, de la Espriella warned that safety forces would proceed pursuing felony organisations working throughout the nation.

The air strike is a part of the Colombian authorities’s intensified navy marketing campaign towards armed felony teams, together with the Gulf Clan, which is concerned in drug trafficking, unlawful mining, extortion and human smuggling.

The authorities’s use of air strikes towards armed teams has, nonetheless, attracted criticism over the chance to minors recruited by felony organisations. Colombia’s National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences has reported the deaths of not less than eight minors in such operations.

The Gulf Clan, also called Clan del Golfo or Gaitanist Self-Defence Forces of Colombia, is taken into account the nation’s largest felony organisation and has maintained a presence in a number of areas.