Ecuador, Colombia border: Explosives, Ammunition found by task force in April

dialogo-americas.com / Explosives Found on Colombia-Ecuador Border
The illegal importation of explosives and ammunition between Colombia and Ecuador is one of the main topics of the binational defense agenda.

In a March 21st operation against drug trafficking, the Colombian Army’s Pegaso Task Force found an illegal cache of 600 homemade 81 mm cartridges in the municipality of Barbacoas, in the department of Nariño. So far this year, the Colombian Armed Forces have seized more than 2,000 grenades of various calibers in the region – the same grenades used by illegal organizations to commit terrorist acts against infrastructure such as highways, bridges, transmission towers, and oil pipelines, among others.

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Brigadier General Sergio Alberto Tafur García, the commander of the Colombian Army’s Pegaso Task Force, said that the department of Nariño, where the task force operates, is situated in a strategic position that has allowed crime problems such as illegal mining to fester. Over the past several years the problems have also included trafficking in weapons, ammunition, and explosives. “Historically, it [this area] has been influenced by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC, per its Spanish acronym), and the National Liberation Army (ELN, per its Spanish acronym), and recently by other Organized Armed Groups (GAOs, per its Spanish acronym) that have not come out of guerilla movements. In the border area with Ecuador, Nariño has a jungle geography that facilitates the illegal trafficking of weapons,” he said.

In that area, the Colombian Army has also seized 653 grenades of various calibers, 42 improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and 1,801 kilos of explosives. All thanks to the joint effort between both countries’ militaries, which have conducted a series of binational operations to effectively tackle the problem. Read Full Article