Image copyright AFP/COLOMBIAN PRESIDENCY Image caption Colombian President Ivan Duque (centre) announced the death on Friday

A Colombian guerrilla leader has been found and killed, the country's president says.

Walter Arízala, known better under his alias Guacho, was wanted for the murder of two Ecuadorean journalists and their driver earlier this year.

On Friday, Colombian President Ivan Duque said he was killed in an operation near the Ecuadorean border.

In a statement Mr Duque described him as "one of the most horrendous criminals the country has known".

"The message is clear, we won't take a step back in the defence of legality, life, honour and the property of Colombians," Mr Duque said.

On top of killings, Guacho was also suspected of drug trafficking and extortion.

The 29-year-old was a former member of Colombia's Farc rebel group. He is one of thousands who have refused orders to lay down arms after the guerrilla group signed a peace deal with the Colombian government in 2016.

Guacho broke away from the Farc and founded the Oliver Sinisterra Front - a dissident gang thought to have about 70 to 80 combatants operating around the Colombia-Ecuador border area.

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The group came to international attention earlier this year after kidnapping two Ecuadorean journalists - 32-year-old reporter Javier Ortega and 45-year-old photographer Paúl Rivas - along with their 60-year-old driver Efraín Segarra.

Two weeks after seizing the three, the group announced they had "died" when the army came close to where they were being held.

Image copyright AFP Image caption The killings led to outrage and grief in Ecuador

Shortly after their bodies were recovered, the group were also blamed for the murder of an Ecuadorean couple.

Oscar Villacís, 24, and Katty Velasco, 20, went missing from Puerto Rico, a rural area near the Colombian town of Tumaco, on the border with Ecuador.

A video of them, restrained with ropes around their necks, was released by the Guacho's group days after their disappearance.

The couple were later found dead with stab wound injuries, and their bodies were flown home to distraught relatives.

The murders led Guacho to become a top target of both countries' governments.

Colombia deployed more than 3,000 members of its armed forces to search for the group's leader "dead or alive", Reuters reports.</s>Colombian armed forces have killed a Marxist insurgent commander in an operation aimed at ending his attacks on civilians after he kidnapped and shot dead three Ecuadorean media workers earlier this year, president Ivan Duque said on Friday.

Walter Arizala, known by his war alias Guacho, was killed in a police and military operation near the border with Ecuador, Duque said in a televised statement.

Arizala was a member of the Oliver Sinisterra unit – a faction of former rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) that refused to adhere to a 2016 peace agreement. The government had deployed more than 3,000 members of the armed forces to search for Arizala “dead or alive”.

“The message is clear, we won’t take a step back in the defence of legality, life, honour and the property of Colombians,” Duque said. “Many Colombian communities will sleep well because one of the most horrendous criminals the country has known is dead.”

Arizala, who was 29, was accused of drug trafficking, extortion and homicide. 

He killed two Ecuadorean journalists and their driver after taking them hostage on 26 March as they reported on assignment for the Quito-based El Comercio newspaper on the border between Ecuador and Colombia.

“I told the Ecuadorean people that the crime of the three Ecuadoreans would not end in impunity,” said Duque.

A proof-of-life photograph released shortly after the Ecuadoreans’ kidnapping showed them chained and padlocked by their necks. Arizala later shot them in the head.

The media crew was reporting on violence in the Esmeraldas region of the border when they were snatched by Arizala’s gang.

Colombia and Ecuador had each offered $100,000 for information leading to Arizala’s capture.

More than a thousand Farc fighters refused to demobilise under the peace accord with former President Juan Manuel Santos and continued cocaine trafficking across the nation. There are thought to be almost 1,800 members of the dissident ranks in 30 units nationwide.

Those operating in Colombia’s southern jungles have attacked Ecuadorean security forces along the border.

Farc, which battled for more than a half century before demobilising, attacked military targets and civilian towns but generally allowed journalists to work freely, unless they went against the rebels’ interests.</s>A left-wing rebel and one of Colombia's "most horrendous criminals" has been killed following a manhunt lasting months.

Walter Arizala, known as "Guacho", led a few dozen guerillas from the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) group.

The US backed an effort to trace him following the kidnap and murder of three Ecuadorian journalists earlier this year.

In a TV address, Colombia's president Ivan Duque revealed Arizala was killed in a "heroic operation" carried out by a special forces unit.

It means many Colombians "can now sleep peacefully because one of the most horrendous criminals our country has ever known has fallen", the president added.

Arizala, 29, joined FARC as a teenager and had previously joined a peace process aimed at ending Colombia's long history of political warfare.

However, he returned to the jungle last year and is believed to have been smuggling cocaine to Mexican drug cartels.

He was killed in the dense jungle border region of Narino, which is home to Colombia's largest harvest of illegal coca plants.

Last year, land dedicated to the crop - used to make cocaine - soared to the largest amount on record at 807 sq miles, according to a White House report.

Arizala is believed to have ordered the abduction and murder of journalist Javier Ortega, 32, photographer Paul Rivas, 45, and their 60-year-old driver Efrain Segarra in March and April.

They worked for El Comercio, a daily newspaper in Ecuador's capital Quito, and were covering a story about violence along the border.

The murders prompted both Colombia and Ecuador to order a military manhunt for their killers.

At least 15 deaths have been blamed on Arizala's group, which is known as the Oliver Sinisterra Front.

Ricardo Rivas said he regretted Arizala died before revealing how his brother Paul was killed.

"I don't think the death of another human being is something we should celebrate," he told local radio.

Most FARC rebels disbanded under a 2016 peace deal, but more than 1,000 dissidents remain active.

They were founded in 1964 as a Marxist-Leninist force.</s>A former leftist rebel who terrorized residents of southern Colombia after abandoning the country’s peace process to plunge headlong into drug trafficking has been killed in combat, Colombian President Ivan Duque announced Friday.

The president said Walter Arizala was killed during a “heroic operation” earlier in the day after a months-long, U.S.-backed manhunt that followed the kidnapping and murder of three Ecuadorian press workers in the turbulent border area.

Many Colombians “can now sleep peacefully because one of the most horrendous criminals our country has ever known has fallen,” Duque said in a televised address.

Arizala, better known by his alias Guacho, was by some accounts the most-wanted fugitive among Colombia’s sprawling criminal underworld.

He led a small holdout faction of a few dozen guerrillas from the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia that was behind a rising wave of drug-related violence, including the March kidnapping of three newspaper workers from Ecuador’s El Comercio newspaper who were later found slain.

Arizala’s troops also are believed to have been behind the slaying of three Colombian judicial workers in July, as well as a spate of civilian kidnappings and car bombings against military facilities in Ecuador.

Authorities provided few details about how Arizala was killed except to say that he was taken out along with a close confidant in an operation codenamed Perla IX carried out by a special forces unit.

Chief prosecutor Nestor Martinez released a blurry photo of Arizala, smiling and wearing a baseball cap, that he said was taken during an undercover surveillance operation carried out in recent weeks.

Arizala’s Oliver Sinisterra Front has its base of operations in Colombia’s volatile Narino state, which is home to Colombia’s largest harvest of illegal coca crops. Land dedicated to production of the raw ingredient used to make cocaine skyrocketed last year to 807 square miles (209,000 hectares), the largest amount on record, according to a recent White House report.

Arizala, 29, was a midrange FARC commander who joined the rebel group as a teenager. He initially joined in the peace process aimed at ending a half-century of political warfare in Colombia, but deserted and returned to the jungle last year where he is believed to have established a brisk business smuggling cocaine to Mexican drug cartels.

Authorities attribute at least 15 deaths to the group.

No cause for celebration

Duque, who has tried to portray himself as a law and order leader in the mold of his mentor, former President Alvaro Uribe, held up Arizala’s death as a war trophy, saying his conservative government would spare no effort in protecting Colombians from criminal activity.

Still, some cautioned against overly celebrating the battlefield victory at a time of rising violence throughout Colombia’s countryside even after thousands of FARC rebels laid down their weapons.

Jose Miguel Vivanco, the director for the Americas at Human Rights Watch, said the historically neglected Afro-Colombian population around the Pacific Ocean port city of Tumaco near where Arizala was killed remains highly vulnerable to recruitment by criminal groups.

“The residents of Tumaco, who have suffered for years and years the abuses committed by multiple actors, need much more than the removal of Guacho for violence not to be recycled again,” he said on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Ricardo Rivas said he regretted that Guacho died without revealing how his brother, Ecuadorian photographer Paul Rivas, was killed.

“I don’t think the death of another human being is something we should celebrate,” Rivas told Colombia’s Blu Radio.</s>A dissident rebel believed to be working for a Mexican drug cartel, and on the 'most wanted' lists of two South American countries, was killed Friday in a government operation, Colombia said.

Walther Arizala, known by his nom-de-guerre of "Guacho," is believed to have ordered the abduction and murder of a three-man Ecuadoran press team on the border with Colombia early this year.

"We can confirm that (Arizala) alias Guacho fell in an operation and has been killed," Colombian President Ivan Duque told reporters.

"I told the Ecuadorian people that the crime against the three journalists would not be one of impunity."

Arizala is believed to have ordered the abduction and murder of journalist Javier Ortega, 32, photographer Paul Rivas, 45, and their 60-year-old driver Efrain Segarra in March and April.

They worked for Quito's El Comercio newspaper and were covering a story about violence along the border.

Their case prompted both countries to send troops to hunt down the perpetrators.

Arizala was "one of the most horrendous criminals that our country has known," Duque said.

Of Ecuadoran origin, Arizala served as a guerrilla for 15 years in the now-defunct FARC movement and then led the Oliver Sinisterra Front, which authorities blame for the kidnapping and murder in April of an Ecuadoran couple, as well as for the journalists' deaths.

Officials believed Guacho and his group of around 70-80 dissident rebels worked for Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel.

In September Duque said "Guacho" was wounded in a gunfight with Colombian soldiers in the jungle border region of Narino, the same area where he has now been killed.

Experts say the border zone, which is covered with dense jungle and crisscrossed by rivers leading into the Pacific, has become a paradise for drug traffickers.

Most Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels disbanded under a 2016 peace deal that ended half a century of conflict in Colombia, but more than 1,000 dissidents remain active.</s>Colombia's President Ivan Duque says the leader of a rebel dissident group believed responsible for the murders of three Ecuadorian press workers is dead.

Duque announced in a televised address Friday evening that Walter Arizala has been killed. The man known by the alias Guacho was one of the nation's most wanted fugitives.

Authorities say his holdout faction of rebels from the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia is behind a wave of violence rattling communities in southern Colombia.

Duque provided no details on how Arizala was killed other than to say he died in a "heroic operation" by the military and police.

The president added that many Colombians "can now sleep peacefully because one of the most horrendous criminals our country has ever known has fallen."</s>Colombian dissident rebel Walter Patricio Arizala has been killed in an operation by the country's armed forces, President Ivan Duque said on Friday.

Arizala, who was part of the Oliver Sinisterra Front — a faction of the now-defunct Revolutionary Army Forces of Colombia (FARC) — was the subject of a monthslong manhunt after he kidnapped and shot dead three Ecuadorean media workers earlier this year.

Colombia and neighboring Ecuador had each offered $100,000 (€88,000) for information leading to his capture.

The government deployed more than 3,000 troops to search for the 29-year-old "dead or alive." His killing took place near the border with Ecuador, Duque said in a televised statement.

"The message is clear; we won't take a step back in the defense of legality, life, honor and the property of Colombians," the president said. "Many Colombian communities will sleep well because one of the most horrendous criminals the country has known is dead."

Better known by his alias Guacho, the former FARC leader was one of the most-wanted fugitives among Colombia's sprawling criminal underworld.

His small holdout faction of a few dozen guerrillas abandoned the country's 2016 peace process and was accused of drug trafficking, extortion and homicide across Colombia's volatile Narino state, which is home to the country's largest harvest of illegal coca crops.

His death follows the slaying of another notorious dissident FARC leader, David Segura, in September.

In March, Arizala was behind the kidnapping of three newspaper workers from Ecuador's El Comercio newspaper, who were later found slain, Colombian authorities have said.

The media crew was reporting on violence in the Esmeraldas region of the border when Arizala's gang snatched them.

A proof-of-life photograph released shortly after their abduction showed them chained and padlocked by their necks. Arizala later shot them in the head.

Almost 1,800 ex-FARC fighters in 30 units nationwide have refused to keep to the terms of the country's 2016 peace accord, and have continued their cocaine trafficking operations.

The FARC, which battled for more than a half-century before demobilizing, attacked military targets and civilian towns but generally allowed journalists to work freely, unless they went against the rebels' interests.

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Ecuadorian drug trafficker and FARC dissident Walter Arizala is killed in a joint police and military operation near Tumaco. Arízala was wanted for the murder of two Ecuadorian journalists earlier in the year.