Colombia Armed Forces Retake Strategic Guerilla Stronghold of El Plateado in Massive Military Assault Operation Perseo

EL PLATEADO, CAUCA — In the most extensive state military incursion mounted in southwestern Colombia in over five years, elite special operations units and motorized cavalry battalions of the Colombian Armed Forces breached and retook the strategic canyon redoubt of El Plateado on Sunday under the banner of "Operation Perseo."

The high-stakes urban military deployment, ordered directly by President Gustavo Petro and executed by over 1,400 heavily equipped soldiers supported by artillery aircraft and armored personnel carriers, dislodged the entrenched apparatus of the Carlos Patiño front—a heavily armed dissident structure of the former FARC belonging to the Estado Mayor Central (EMC) coalition that has long exercised total territorial and illicit economic dominion over the fertile coca-growing corridors of the Micay Canyon.

Military commanders confirmed that special forces faced fierce resistance during their advance through the mountainous approaches to the town, neutralizing antipersonnel minefields planted along unpaved access roads and evading explosive munitions dropped from commercial civilian drones operated by the insurgent syndicate. Despite the volatility, government armored columns secured the central plaza and municipal administrative headquarters, establishing a fortified perimeter to safeguard the civilian population.

President Petro addressed the nation from Bogotá following the operation's initial success, declaring: "After more than five years of illegal dissident dominance, the army of the homeland has entered El Plateado. Today, El Plateado is Colombia." Petro stressed that military liberation represents only the opening phase of state re-entry, announcing an immediate package of social infrastructure investments, agrarian credit lines, and legal crop substitution programs designed to dismantle the illicit drug economy that has fueled decades of violence across the Cauca department.

Humanitarian observers and local medical personnel stationed in the Argelia municipality treated seventeen civilians who suffered shrapnel injuries from dissident grenade attacks during the confrontation, calling for the immediate establishment of humanitarian corridors to deliver emergency medical supplies and essential foodstuffs to isolated rural families.

Defense Ministry officials stated that military garrisons will remain stationed permanently inside El Plateado to secure state sovereignty, prevent insurgent counter-attacks, and protect the rollout of public healthcare, education, and road construction projects across the Micay basin.