Colombia's long-fighting Marxist FARC rebels have named a new leader after the death of their leader Alfonso Cano earlier this month in a clash with government forces, local media reported Tuesday.
Cano, who had led the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia since 2008, was gunned down in a November 4 firefight during a day-long operation in which his female companion also died.
President Juan Manuel Santos praised the military attack that felled the long-sought rebel leader and immediately urged the FARC to lay down their arms and begin peace talks with the government.
The rebels shrugged off his overture, and named Timoleon Jimenez, alias Timochenko, as their top leader, according to a FARC statement broadcast by national media.
"Comrade Timoleon Jimenez, voted in unanimously by his comrades on the Secretariat (FARC leadership), was named on November 5 as new commander" of the FARC, the statement, published in El Tiempo de Bogota, read in part.
"Continuity of the Strategic Plan as such is assured until power has been taken for the people," the text adds.
Timochenko, 52, was commander of the regional unit in Magdalena Medio, commanding about 800 troops.
The operation to kill Cano was the latest in a string of recent military victories in the government's quest to eradicate Latin America's longest-running leftist insurgency, after years of unsuccessful attempts to find a negotiated solution.
The FARC, believed to have 8,000 members, has been at war with the government since 1964.
It began a campaign of kidnappings in the mid-1980s, seizing army hostages to serve as bargaining chips for FARC prisoners. By the late 1990s, civilians and political leaders were also being snatched, winning the group greater notoriety.
The group has suffered some serious losses since 2008, when its number two Raul Reyes died during a Colombian army raid in Ecuadoran territory.
That same year, the FARC also lost Manuel "Sure Shot" Marulanda Velez, the reclusive 80-year-old rebel chief, who was last seen in 1982. He died after a brief illness.
