Colombian army kills FARC senior member

Colombia's government forces have killed Juan Carlos, one of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia's (FARC) most senior members, the military said Wednesday.

Elite government troops killed Carlos on Tuesday in Cimitarra, a settlement in the northern department of Santander, after locating the rebel chief with clues from an informer, General Jose Joaquin Cortes told reporters.

Carlos was a member of the FARC's 25-strong chiefs of staff, and appeared to have the job of taking over areas formerly controlled by the demobilized United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, Cortes said.

The FARC chiefs of staff, led by the group's founder Manuel Marulanda Velez, chooses the administrators who run the FARC.

"Although Juan Carlos was not known to most Colombians he is without doubt one of the FARC's most important figures," Cortes said, adding that the army's Fifth Division had offered a reward of 692,000 U.S. dollars for information leading to his capture.

In another development, the army said seven FARC members and one from the small-scale People's Revolutionary Army, were killed in military operations across the country.

Source: Xinhua