Legendary Colombian rebel dies

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Manuel “Sureshot” Marulanda, a peasant’s son who built Latin America’s mightiest guerrilla army but failed in a half century of struggle to trigger a communist revolution in Colombia, is dead. He was believed to be 78.

The “comandante maximo” of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, died March 26 of a heart attack, senior rebel leader Timoleon Jimenez said in a video broadcast Sunday.

He did not specify where Marulanda died, though military officials say his death coincided with bombings in southern jungles where he was believed to be holed up.

Marulanda was the world’s longest-fighting rebel leader, the archetypal product of Colombia’s bloody modern times. Marulanda also fathered at least seven children but is not known to have married.

The FARC has suffered a series of setbacks in recent months, including the killings of two other members of its seven-man ruling Secretariat.

Born Pedro Antonio Marin, Marulanda took his nom-de-guerre from a labor leader beaten to death in the 1950s in a secret police dungeon. A master strategist, he earned his nickname “Tirofijo,” or “Sureshot,” for his skill ambushing army patrols.

In March 2006, the U.S. Justice Department indicted 50 FARC leaders on cocaine trafficking charges and offered a $5 million reward for Marulanda.

An avid student of military history and guerrilla warfare, Marulanda was also a tango lover who played violin as a child.

He built the rebels into a 15,000-strong guerrilla army that controlled vast swaths of countryside by the mid-1990s, dealing punishing blows to the military with attacks in which it captured scores of soldiers and police.

The government says the rebels currently hold some 700 hostages, including three U.S. military contractors and the French-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt, who the FARC kidnapped in 2002 while she was running for president.