Cocaine and Gold Fuel Ecuador’s Militarized Clash with Colombian Rebels

Cocaine and Gold Fuel Ecuador’s Militarized Clash with Colombian Rebels

Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa declared three Colombian criminal factions-Comandos de la Frontera, Frente Oliver Sinisterra, and Disidencias Comuneros del Sur-as organized armed groups on May 15, 2025, escalating military operations along the 730-kilometer Amazonian border. The decree follows a May 9 ambush in Alto Punino, Orellana province, where 11 soldiers died during anti-illegal mining operations. […]

The Government of Ecuador has included in its list of armed groups organized to three dissidences of the Colombian guerrillas due to their participation in the "internal armed conflict", after one of them was attributed the death of eleven soldiers in an operation in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

After the murder of eleven soldiers in an ambush on 9 May, the young liberal leader of Ecuador, newly re-elected with a security speech, decided to attack the guerrillas who control illegal gold mining on the border with Colombia.