Camilla Jessen
Colombia guerrilla calls for united front against Trump.
Colombia’s most wanted guerrilla leader, known as Iván Mordisco, has urged rival armed groups to set aside their bloody conflicts and form a united insurgent front against the United States and President Donald Trump.
In a video circulated online less than a week after U.S. special forces captured Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro, Mordisco said, “Destiny calls us to unite. We are not scattered forces, we are heirs to the same cause.”
Flanked by armed fighters, the leader of the Estado Mayor Central (EMC), a dissident faction of the former FARC, warned that “the shadow of the interventionist vulture has fallen over everyone equally.”
Former enemies
Mordisco, whose real name is Néstor Gregorio Vera, explicitly mentioned the National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia’s most powerful remaining guerrilla group, as a potential ally.
The two factions have fought violently over territory and drug routes.
“The war between Mordisco and the ELN has been very, very bloody, with a huge humanitarian impact,” security analyst Jorge Mantilla told The Telegraph.
Despite this, Mantilla said Mordisco is now framing the United States as a shared enemy and calling for a “great insurgent bloc.”
Regional stakes
The ELN controls large areas along Colombia’s border with Venezuela and has benefited from safe havens offered by the Maduro regime in recent years.
The group, founded in the 1960s and inspired by the Cuban Revolution, is believed to have around 6,000 fighters.
After Maduro’s capture, the ELN vowed to fight “the American empire until the last drop of blood,” further heightening regional tensions.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, himself a former guerrilla, has warned that such alliances could justify a coordinated effort to dismantle armed groups. He said he has invited Venezuela’s interim leader Delcy Rodríguez to cooperate in eliminating insurgent forces.
Limits of unity
Former ELN commander Carlos Arturo Velandia said the group is unlikely to embrace Mordisco’s proposal, describing his faction as a “narco-paramilitary organization.”
Even so, analysts caution that defeating Colombia’s armed groups would be a long-term challenge. Mantilla estimates around 25,000 fighters operate across various factions.
“Twenty-five thousand people are not something you can wipe off the map with a bombing or a special operation,” he said.
Sources: The Telegraph, regional security analysts, Digi24
