National Liberation Army (Colombia)

Main Tabs Group

Overview

Formed:

July 4, 1964

Disbanded: Group is active.

First Attack: January 7, 1965: The ELN seized Simacota, a small town in Santander. Following the attack, founder Fabio Vásquez Castaño along with Victor Medina Moron read the ELN’s proclamation and announced its existence as a group (unknown killed, unknown wounded).[1]

Last Attack January 2026: The ELN intensified a military offensive in the Catatumbo region against FARC dissidents to secure control over cocaine production centers and border smuggling routes. The operation was notable for the simultaneous use of armed drones by both groups to target each other and suspected civilian collaborators. It resulted in the displacement of over 2,000 people into the city of Cúcuta. (Unknown killed, unknown wounded).[2]

Brothers Fabio and Manuel Vásquez Castaño founded the National Liberation Army (El Ejército de Liberación Nacional, ELN) in 1964. The brothers’ Marxist-Leninist group sought to defend Colombians whom they believed to be victims of social, political, and economic injustices perpetrated by the Colombian state. The Colombian military decimated the ELN in 1973; however, the group was able to rebuild from just 65 members. The ELN’s kidnapping practices and its involvement in the drug trade helped the group grow to over 4,000 members in 1999. Since its emergence in the drug trade, the ELN has also been highly active in illegal gold mining throughout both Colombia and Venezuela. Although the ELN’s membership had been in a steady decline since 2000, the group has grown to an estimated 5,800 members, capitalizing heavily on the Venezuelan refugee crisis as well as absorbing ex-FARC members and territories. The ELN began peace talks with the Colombian government in late 2022, though lateral tension between ex-FARC dissidents (i.e., those FARC members who have refused to demobilize and accept the 2016 FARC peace deal) and competing drug trafficking groups have risen against the ELN. After two decades of failed peace talks and broken ceasefires, President Petro’s Total Peace plan made historic progress for Colombian peace. In May 2024, the first of six peace agenda items was signed by the ELN and Colombian government in Caracas, Venezuela. However, the ELN rejected to renew the Bilateral, National and Temporary Ceasefire agreement, initiating a tense period between the ELN and Petro government upon its expiration on August 3rd, 2024. On September 18th, 2024, the Colombian government briefly ended the peace negotiations after the ELN’s fatal attack on a military base in the Arauca province. According to a joint Colombian government-ELN announcement, the sporadic peace process resumed on November 7th, 2024. The ELN’s growing influence in, and loyalty to, Venezuela has also fortified upon President Maduro’s disputed July 2024 election victory. Peace negotiations collapsed in early 2025 following a violent ELN offensive in Catatumbo, leading the group to prioritize territorial control and the tactical use of weaponized drones. By early 2026, the group maintained its strategic sanctuary as a "binational" paramilitary force in Venezuela despite the U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro and a renewed military offensive by a joint Colombia-U.S. security pact.

Narrative

The National Liberation Army (El Ejército de Liberación Nacional, ELN) is Colombia’s oldest and largest leftist guerrilla group. It was formed in 1964 by brothers Fabio and Manuel Vásquez Castaño following the Colombian civil war, which took place from 1948-1958, known as La Violencia. Inspired by the Cuban Revolution and Che Guevarra, students, Catholic radicals, and leftist intellectuals joined the ELN to fight for a popular democracy in Colombia.[3] Fabio Vásquez Castaño was the former leader of the Brigada Pro Liberación Nacional José Antonio Galán (José Antonio Galán Liberation Brigade), a student group which received direct support from the Cuban revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro.[4] As a result, Fabio Vásquez Castaño, alongside Manuel and other founding members of the ELN, sought to replace the Colombian government with a system that aligned with Marxist and anti-imperialist values.[5]

In July 1964, the insurgent group started training in the province of Santander. Six months later, the insurgents took over Simacota, a small village in Santander, and officially announced themselves as the ELN.[6] The ELN spent the following years organizing and gathering recruits, many of whom were priests from the Catholic Church, alongside university students and leftist academics.[7] The ELN’s steady growth was halted in 1973 due to the government military offensive Operation Anorí.[8] The ELN’s near destruction became a pivotal moment for the group in which Father Manuel Pérez (alias “El Cura Pérez” or “Poliarcho”) and Nicolás Rodriguez Bautista (alias “Gabino”) took over central leadership.

While the ELN had previously shied away from kidnapping for ideological reasons, under Gabino and Pérez, it began kidnapping politicians and wealthy landowners for revenue to rebuild the itself. In 1975 and 1976, the ELN’s main activities were bank robbing, kidnapping, and assassinating military members.[9] By the 1980s, ELN members had become expert kidnappers, operating on boats, vehicles, and airplanes. In the 1990s, the ELN started targeting and extorting the employees of local and foreign oil companies operating in its area of control.[10] In 1998 alone, the ELN earned $84 million from ransoms and $225 million from the extortion of oil company employees.[11]

The ELN initially avoided the drug trade, unlike other Colombian militant groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and instead focused on furthering its political goals.[12] However, this changed by the late 1990s, when the ELN had started taxing coca and marijuana growers, especially in the Bolivar Province where the group had established its headquarters.[13]

In 1999, the ELN gained considerable strength with between 4,000 and 5,000 members and approximately 15,000 supporters.[14] However, the 2000s marked a period of decline due to the increasingly influential paramilitary forces, such as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) and Death to Kidnappers (MAS), who directly targeted leftist guerrilla groups. As a result, the ELN lost large amounts of territory in the Bolivar Province, including its former home base.[15] In 2001, the ELN started peace talks with the Colombian government, but the talks quickly failed. Then-Colombian President Andrés Pastrana Arango was more focused on negotiating with the FARC than with the ELN. When the peace process with the FARC collapsed, Pastrana Arango was left with little public support to continue pursuing negotiations with the ELN, contributing to the failure of the 2001 peace talks.[16] After Pastrana left office, the ELN engaged in peace talks with the newly inaugurated Uribe administration. These peace talks, hosted in both Mexico and Cuba, also failed.[17] By 2009, the ELN showed signs of internal fragmentation; units disobeyed leaders’ orders and allied with drug traffickers for financial security.[18]

Beginning in 2009, reports of the ELN referred to the group as a weakened and forgotten force.[19] In 2012, the ELN was not invited to the peace talks between the FARC and the Colombian government. Analysts speculate that the Colombian government denied the ELN admission to the peace talks because the government no longer viewed the ELN as a threat.[20] The ELN responded to its exclusion from the peace negotiations by killing police officers and blowing up oil pipelines in 2012.[21] In 2013, the ELN continued to increase attacks and declared war on oil companies.[22]

In June 2014, the progression of FARC peace talks caused the Santos government to renew exploratory peace negotiations with the ELN.[23] Despite a continued targeting of oil pipelines, use of antipersonnel landmines, and the ELN’s severe injustices against civilians, the government continued its exploratory talks with the ELN through 2015.[24] In March 2016, the Colombian government and the ELN publicly declared their intentions to begin formal peace talks, but the ELN’s reluctance to abandon its lucrative kidnapping practices delayed the official negotiations.[25] FARC’s decreasing power in Colombia, per its successful 2016 peace negotiations, increased conflicts for territorial control between the ELN and the Gaitanistas (known as the Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia, the AGC, the Gulf Clan, and formerly Los Urabeños)—Colombia’s largest drug-trafficking paramilitary group. In 2016, conflict between the two groups in the Chocó region “severely limited the ability of many indigenous and Afro-Colombian people to leave their towns.”[26]

The ELN and President Iván Duque’s government entered formal peace talks in February 2017 and later joined a four-month bilateral ceasefire, motivated by Pope Francis’ visit to Colombia in September 2017.[27] The government’s bombing of ELN encampments during the ELN’s 2018 Christmas Ceasefire incited the ELN’s fatal police academy bombing in January 2019.[28] The government suspended the formal peace talks following the police academy bombing.[29] In response to the attack, President Duque also called on Cuba to arrest and extradite the 10 ELN leaders who had been attending the peace talks in Cuba, but his request was rejected.[30] The suspended peace negotiations were followed by surging contestations over drug trafficking and illegal gold mining regions between the ELN and ex-FARC dissident groups, and the ELN and the Gaitanistas, a transnational drug trafficking group. [31]

Violence between the ELN and other armed groups continued into 2020, severely affecting and displacing Colombian civilians.[32] UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s call for a global ceasefire due to the COVID-19 pandemic inspired the ELN’s temporary unilateral April ceasefire as an attempt to reignite the formal 2019 peace discussion.[33] The ELN’s strategic ceasefire failed to meet President Duque’s preconditions to renew peace talks, which were that the ELN release its hostages and halt its criminal activity.[34] As Duque’s government and the ELN communicated preliminary discussion requirements in July 2020, the ELN violently clashed with the Gaitanistas and ex-FARC dissidents by exploiting the government’s COVID-cautious policies to impose its territorial control.[35]

President Gustavo Petro’s election in 2022 emphasized his prioritization of Colombia’s peace, hoping to finally resolve the 60-year-long struggle between the ELN and the Colombian government.[36] Petro, himself a former guerilla (of the defunct M-19), introduced the Paz Total (or “Total Peace”) plan to restore formal peace talks with Colombia’s armed militant groups, utilizing the 2016 Peace Accords from FARC’s demobilization.[37] Petro dismissed the ELN’s warrants of arrest and extradition from President Duque and sent a negotiation team to Cuba, where ELN delegates had been evading Colombian authorities.[38] The ELN reciprocated Petro’s action by releasing hostages and thus beginning a new opportunity for Colombian peace.[39]

The era of peace talks from 2022 to the present is characterized by temporary bilateral ceasefires, lateral armed group violence, and many peace dialogues between the ELN and the Colombian government in Venezuela, Cuba, and Mexico.[40] The peace endeavors made substantial progress in the signing of the Bilateral, Temporary National Ceasefire in August 2023. The agreement began the first six-month ceasefire period for peace-building efforts and was renewed for a second six-month period in February 2024.[41] Ideological differences between the ELN’s Central Command and the ELN’s Nariño-based southern war front led to the creation of the Comuneros del Sur, which began its own independent pursuit of peace negotiations in May 2024.[42] The ELN’s Central Command strongly opposed and denounced the dissident group’s decentralized peace talks.[43]

The May 2024 peace negotiations round ended in the “biggest advance to date” for Colombia’s peace with the first of six peace accords signed by the ELN and government in Caracas, Venezuela.[44] The agreement addressed citizen participation in the peace process through the economic, political, environmental, educational, and cultural sectors.[45] The Bilateral, Temporary National Ceasefire protocol expired in August 2024 and placed uncertainty on the peace negotiations without its renewal.[46] Over the next several months, the ELN resumed kidnappings, pipeline bombings, and targeted military attacks.[47] It attacked a military base on September 17th, killing two Colombian soldiers and injuring dozens of others; the following day, the government announced that peace talks were being placed on hold.[48] The ELN and Petro’s government released a joint statement announcing the official resumption of the peace talks on November 7th, 2024.[49]

As Colombia’s peace talks with the ELN stop and start again, the ELN’s power in Venezuela has maintained its strength. The ELN has aided the Venezuelan government as a paramilitary group since first receiving support from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in 1999.[50] Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, has continued to enable the ELN’s influence and behaviors in Venezuela, allowing its illegal gold mining and coca trafficking and benefiting from the group’s loyalty in return.[51] The ties between the ELN and the Venezuelan government have led to its enduring commitment to the autocratic Maduro regime.[52] During the July 2024 election campaign, the ELN was reportedly seen on the streets of Venezuelan border states, pressuring and threatening Venezuelans to vote for Maduro.[53] Maduro’s heavily disputed victory was reported to indicate another likely six years of a Venezuelan safe haven for the ELN’s illicit practices (see “D. State Sponsors and External Influences” for more).[54]

The ELN’s participation in the Colombian peace talks effectively collapsed in January 2025 following a massive military initiative on January 16 into the Catatumbo region of Norte de Santander where they targeted the 33rd Front of FARC dissidents to secure exclusive control over strategic cocaine production enclaves and border smuggling routes.[55] This campaign resulted in over 100 deaths and the displacement of more than 60,000 civilians, leading President Petro to formally suspend all dialogue and declare that the insurgency had "chosen the path of war.”[56] The ELN continued to be active throughout mid-2025 and notably increased its use of weaponized commercial drones, exemplified by a July 20, 2025, strike on a military patrol outside El Carmen that killed three soldiers.[57]

By late 2025, the ELN’s operational focus was increasingly defined by aggressive anti-imperialist rhetoric in response to threats of military intervention from the United States.[58] Following a U.S. declaration that drug-producing regions were "subject to attack," the ELN enforced a 72-hour national armed strike from December 14 to 17, 2025, which paralyzed movement across 13 departments and involved the widespread placement of cylinder bombs on major roadways.[59] During this period of heightened tension, the group carried out a major drone attack on December 18 against the Capitán Antonio Ricaurte military base in Cesar, killing seven officers.[60] Despite these hostilities, Commander-in-Chief Antonio García signaled a conditional willingness statement on December 10, 2025, to resume talks if the state honored previous humanitarian commitments, though analysts noted that the group's strong presence in Venezuela remained a primary obstacle to disarmament.[61]

As of early 2026, the group's strategic sanctuary in Venezuela appears to be mostly unaffected following the capture of Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces on January 3.[62] The ELN has so far maintained its established communication channels with the remaining Venezuelan officials under interim president Delcy Rodríguez.[63] However, more pressure is being placed on the group by the Colombian government: on February 4, 2026, the Colombian military executed a strike that killed seven ELN fighters near the Venezuelan border, an operation resulting from a new joint security pact between Petro and United States President Donald Trump.[64] This agreement specifically designated the ELN’s military strategist, Pablito (also known as Carlos Marin Guarin, legal name Gustavo Anibal Giraldo Quinchía), as one of three primary targets for elimination, with the two others being a FARC dissident faction and Gaitanista Army leader, respectively. This marked a period of renewed state-led offensive actions as the country approaches the May 2026 presidential elections.[65]

Organization

Vertical Tabs

Leadership

The ELN’s highest level of leadership is the Central Command (COCE). As of 2026, the COCE is comprised of five national commanders: Antonio Garcia, Pablo Beltrán, Ariel, Ramiro Vargas, and Pablito.[66] The COCE oversees all ELN operations: political, military, financial, intranational, and international. Below the COCE is the National Directorate (DINAL); its 23 members serve as the point people between the COCE and the ELN’s Fronts.[67] The leadership system of the ELN is largely decentralized.[68] There are eight fronts to the ELN, each of which operates as an autonomous organization. According to Amnesty International, the group’s sub-units are “loosely united under a central authority.”[69] In addition to its eight official war fronts, the ELN also has urban militias in some of Colombia’s major cities, such as Medellín, Barranquilla, Bogotá, and Cali.[70] Below are notable leadership of the ELN:

Top Commanders, Past to Present:

Fabio Vásquez Castaño (1964-1973): Fabio Vásquez Castaño was a founding member of the ELN. In the 1965 seizure of Simacota, he read the ELN’s proclamation that established the group and outlined its goals. Vásquez Castaño pushed the ELN to be very active militarily, as he thought that political and ideological training would inhibit military advancement. After the military’s 1973 attack resulted in the deaths of ELN members, Fabio was dismissed from his duties as Commander-in-Chief of the ELN by Father Manuel Pérez (alias “El Cura Pérez” or “Poliarcho”) and Gabino (legal name Nicolas Rodríguez Bautista). He fled to Cuba after his expulsion, where he remained until his death at 79 years old in 2019.[71]

Manuel Vásquez Castaño (1964/5-1973): Manuel Vásquez Castaño was a founding member of the ELN, and second-in-command under his brother, Fabio Vásquez Castaño. Manuel Vásquez Castaño was killed alongside fellow ELN members in the 1973 Colombian military offensive, Operation Anorí.[72]

“El Cura Pérez,” also known as Father Manuel Pérez Martínez or “Poliarcho” (1969-1998): Father Torres’ death inspired Cura Pérez to join the ELN in 1969. After the exile of Fabio Vásquez Castaño in 1973, Pérez took leadership of the ELN with Gabino. Pérez’ extremism helped shape the ELN’s ideology via radical Catholic liberation theology. He also oversaw an increase in violent and illicit practices committed by the ELN.[73] He died in February 1998 from hepatitis B.[74]

“Gabino,” legal name Nicolás Rodríguez Bautista (1973-2021): Gabino joined the ELN in 1964 when he was 14 and took part in the ELN’s first attack in 1965. In 1973, he joined the Central Command and took joint leadership of the group alongside El Cura Pérez. Gabino was the Commander-in-Chief of the ELN and the highest member of the Central Command (COCE) when he fled to Cuba to evade his arrest in 2019.[75] Gabino retired from the ELN in 2021, though he was reported to remain in close contact with Antonio Garcia, the current head of the ELN.[76]

“Antonio Garcia,” legal name Eliécer Erlinto de Jesus Chamorro (1970s-Present): Antonio Garcia is the leader of the ELN’s Central Command (COCE) as the Commander-in-Chief of the ELN. Garcia joined the ELN in the mid-1970s. Following El Cura’s death in 1998, he became the ELN’s military commander. His responsibilities included military strategy and weaponry.[77] Garcia has been a member of the ELN’s Central Command since the 1980s. Garcia was one of the ELN’s negotiators, and he participated in peace talks after the government nullified his arrest warrant in 2006.[78] In March 2016, he was the leader of the ELN’s delegation to set the agenda for the following peace negotiations with the Colombian government.[79]. As of Gabino’s retirement in 2021, Antonio Garcia became the head of the ELN.[80] He still acts as Commander-in-Chief of the ELN and COCE and, in December 2025, affirmed his willingness to resume peace talks with the Petro-led government.[81]

Prominent Active Members:

“Pablo Beltrán”, legal name Israel Ramírez Pinead (Unknown-Present): Beltrán is a member of the ELN’s Central Command (COCE) as the political commander and chief negotiator of the militant group.[82] Beltrán is also acknowledged as the COCE’s second-in-command.[83] In interview appearances, he frequently outlines the ELN’s mission, goals, and beliefs.[84] The Colombian government recognized Beltrán as a representative member of the ELN in 2007, which allowed him to join the negotiation team for the peace talks in Cuba in 2012.[85] In May 2019, Beltrán gave an interview in which he reaffirmed the ELN’s commitment to peace and criticized President Duque’s cessation of negotiations.[86] After the 2019 ELN police academy attack, Beltrán fled to Cuba to evade arrest.[87] President Petro’s dismissal of ELN leaders’ extradition and arrest warrants brought Beltrán to the negotiating table once again, and he has led the ELN’s negotiations in the on-and-off peace talks with Petro’s government since 2022.[88]

“Ariel”, also known as Lorenzo Alcantruz, legal name Jaime Galvis Rivera (Unknown-Present): Ariel is a member of the Central Command (COCE) as the commander of finances. Ariel is a confirmed coordinator of the 2019 police academy bombing and has since continued his operations from the Colombia-Venezuela border region.[89] A sworn loyalty to the Venezuelan Maduro regime enabled his acting position as ELN financier to expand the ELN’s illegal income operations.[90] He is also the alleged commander of the ELN’s urban front, The Camilo Torres Restrepo National Urban War Front (Frente de Guerra Urbano Nacional – FGUN).[91]

“Pablito,” also known as Carlos Marin Guarin, legal name Gustavo Anibal Giraldo Quinchía (Unknown-Present): Pablito is a member of the Central Command (COCE) as the relations commander over the ELN’s 8 national war fronts. In 2000, Pablito became a commander of the ELN’s Front of East War. He headed his ELN operations in Apure, Venezuela until 2008, when Colombian authorities captured him while he was using the alias “Carlos Marín Guarín.” In 2009, Pablito escaped from prison in Arauca, Colombia with the help of other ELN members. In 2016, Pablito joined the Central Command and managed the COCE’s war front relations. Pablito was confirmed as one of the orchestrators of the January 2019 police academy attack in Bogotá and has since fled Colombia to Venezuela.[92] Pablito’s loyalty to the Venezuelan-Maduro government largely advanced the ELN’s expansion into Venezuela.[93] Local newspapers reported that Pablito died in 2021, but this has not been confirmed.[94] As of 2026, Pablito remains in the INTERPOL Red Notice directory as a wanted individual in Colombia.

“Ramiro Vargas”, legal name Rafael Sierra Granados (Unknown-Present): Ramiro Vargas is a member of the Central Command (COCE) as the commander responsible for the ELN’s international affairs. Vargas was involved in the exploratory talks with the Colombian government in 2002.[95] In 2006, President Uribe nullified Vargas’ arrest warrant, recognizing him as a spokesperson for the ELN as part of the peace process.[96] As of July 2019, Vargas was a member of the Central Command first overseeing the financier position, but now he organizes the militant group’s international connections.[97]

Alex Bonito, legal name Wilmer Galindo (Unknown-Present): Alex Bonito is the leader of the José Daniel Pérez Carrero Front of the ELN along eastern Colombia. Since 2017, the José Daniel Pérez Carrero Front has strengthened the ELN by capturing much of the former FARC territory between the Colombia-Venezuela border.[98] According to the International Crisis Group in 2019, Bonito is the local leader of the ELN guerrilla forces in the Venezuelan Amazonas state. Bonito oversees the ELN’s extensive illegal mining operations in the border regions.[99]

Prominent Past Members

Victor Medina Moron (1964-1966/7): Before founding the ELN, Medina was a leader of Santander’s Communist Party. Medina believed that, before delving into combat, it was important for the ELN to develop a sound political foundation. This led to conflict between Fabio Vásquez Castaño and Medina. In 1968, Fabio and Manuel Vásquez Castaño murdered Medina for disagreeing with their approach.[100]

“Father Torres,” also known as Father Camilo Torres Restrepo (January 7, 1966-February 15, 1966): Father Torres was a Roman Catholic Priest who studied the ELN from its inception and supported their goals and purpose. On January 7, 1966, Father Torres first joined the group in Santander. Weeks later Father Torres died in combat and became a martyr for the ELN.[101]

Jaime Arenas Reyes (1963-1968): Arenas quickly distanced himself from the group after joining the militant group’s guerrilla ranks in 1967. His book, La guerrilla por dentro ELN, exposed the ELN’s internal purges, militarism, and sectarianism and led to his murder by ELN leaders in Bogotá in 1971.[102]

Francisco Galán (1991-2008): Galán was a political spokesperson for the ELN from 1991 to 2008. In 2000, he was released temporarily to meet with President Pastrana’s negotiators and to discuss the prospect of peace between the ELN and the Colombian government.[103] In 2005, President Álvaro Uribe released Galán from prison for three months to participate in peace negotiations. In April 2008, the ELN renounced Galán’s status as spokesperson and member of the negotiating team because his actions in negotiations with the Colombian government were not representative of the ELN.[104] In 2020, the Colombian government released Galán from prison and named him an official “peace promoter” between the ELN and the Colombian government. His appointment and attempted mediation were rejected by the ELN.[105]

Size Estimates

1972: 200 (Colombia Reports)[106]
1973: 65 (Colombia Reports)[107]
1990s: 8,000 (Christian Science Monitor)[108]
1998: 4,000 (El País)[109]
1998: 5,000 (Inside Colombia: Drugs, Democracy and War)[110]
2001: 3,500 (Inside Colombia: Drugs, Democracy and War)[111]
2006: 2,000 (Christian Science Monitor)[112]
2008: 2,200-3,000 (The Washington Post)[113]
2009: 1,500 (BBC)[114]
2010: 5,000 (Colombia Reports)[115]
2012: <1,500 (Colombia Reports)[116]
2013: 1,380-3,000 (Tracking Terrorism)[117]
2013: 3,000 (The Wall Street Journal)[118]
2014: 2,500 (Pares)[119]
2015: 2,000 (Voice of America News)[120]
2015: 2,000 (BBC)[121]
2015: 2,000 (Reuters)[122]
2015: <2,000 (InSight Crime)[123]
2017: 2,000 (Reuters)[124]
2018: 3,000 (Colombia Reports)[125]
2019: 2,402 (Reuters)[126]
2020: 2,450 (Reuters)[127]
2020: 5,400 (Journal of Americas)[128]
2021: 5,000 (U.S. Department of State)[129]
2022: >5,800 (Barron’s)[130]
2023: <5,000 (CIA)[131]
2024: 5,000-6,000 (CIA)[132]
2025: 6,200 (Reuters)[133]

Name Changes

There are no recorded name changes for this group.

Resources

In the ELN’s formative years, Cuba provided the group with weapons and financial support.[134] In the 1970s, the ELN relied on kidnapping for revenue to rebuild after its near destruction by the Colombian military’s 1973 Operation Anorí.[135] Additionally, the ELN profited from protection payments and ransoms.[136]

The ELN increased kidnappings in the 1980s.[137] Throughout the decade, the ELN secured millions of dollars from German oil contractors through extortion and kidnapping threats.[138] In the 1990s, the ELN also began extorting oil company employees. Together, kidnapping and extortion became the ELN’s primary source of revenue, bringing in $225 million in 1998 alone.[139] In the 1990s, the ELN began taxing coca and marijuana farmers, especially in the Bolivar Province, where it had territorial control.[140] Many units of the ELN reportedly established independent relationships with drug trafficking gangs in order to survive economically.[141] The extension of the Bilateral, National and Temporary Ceasefire shortly halted the ELN’s kidnapping practices in February 2024.[142] The government’s proposed multi-donor fund to finance the peace process led to the ELN’s misinterpretation that this fund would compensate for its forfeited kidnapping profits. The ELN announced its resumption of kidnapping in May 2024 as a result of its misinterpretation of the fund’s purpose to replace kidnapping profits.[143]

Kidnapping and extortion, although acknowledged under different names, were formal components of the ELN’s economic strategy. In 2000, ELN Commander Antonio Garcia said that the group financed its operations in four ways: donations, produce sales, voluntary contributions, and taxation.[144] ELN members, who were mostly working, wage-earning people, provided donations, according to Garcia. The commander continued to claim that the militant group engaged in community activities by growing produce to be sold for profit.[145] Voluntary contributions allegedly came from people who were not members of the ELN, but who shared the ELN’s ideas.[146] The ELN alleged that wealthy individuals were taxed to provide another source of the ELN’s income and people who refused to pay the tax were faced with “economic retention,” a policy that was widely understood to be the kidnapping of wealthy individuals.[147] Recent reports indicate that the ELN continues to rely on agricultural sales and taxation for its funding, citing the illegal taxation of goods from “coca, fish, milk to the gold they take from the so-called Venezuelan Mining Arc.”[148] The ELN’s sizable presence in Venezuela increased its involvement in drug trafficking and illegal mining, both of which have become fundamental financial resources for the militant group.[149]

Though its initial ideology opposed drug trafficking, the ELN have become owners of “one of the world’s most important cocaine production centers” along the Colombian-Venezuelan border.[150] The ELN’s favorable relationship with Maduro’s administration and FARC’s demobilization in 2016 advanced the group’s expansion and subsequent coca production in Venezuelan territory.[151] The militant group sells its coca profits to consumers such as the Mexican Sinaloa cartel, who are the largest purchasers of the ELN’s coca.[152] As of 2026, while the group continues to attempt to rhetorically distance itself from the drug trade, the ELN has undeniably grown into one of the region’s major drug traffickers, controlling cocaine production centers in Colombia’s Norte de Santander department and Venezuela’s Zulia state.[153]

Besides kidnapping, extortion, and drug trafficking, the ELN’s illegal gold mining activities in both Colombia and Venezuela are essential to its financing.[154] Illegal gold mining is the ELN’s largest financial source; mining accounts for approximately 60% of the group’s income, according to an interview with a former ELN commander in 2018.[155] It made an estimated 10 billion Colombian pesos from 2016 to 2018 by forcing illegal miners to turn over 10%-20% of their earnings to the ELN.[156] The group has retained its presence in Venezuela since the 1990s, though its territory has significantly expanded since 2000. ELN-held areas in Venezuela have grown at an increasingly faster rate since 2017 and have been generating profit from illegally mining gold throughout the country.[157] José Daniel Pérez Carrero Front commander, Alex Bonito, secured between 900,000 to 1 million pesos monthly from the Venezuelan gold mines, according to military intelligence in 2023.[158]

Control of the border between Venezuela and Colombia created additional income resources. ELN has profited from smuggling drugs— though the ELN denies its involvement with human trafficking.[159] The ELN has capitalized on refugees and displaced people who are fleeing internal Venezuelan conflict, as well as at-risk youth and poor indigenous populations. The group has drawn upon these populations to serve as a workforce in its mines.[160] The ELN’s growth across Venezuela into the border with Guyana has also given the militant group another region to collect profit via smuggling fuel and other daily necessities.[161]

Locations

Disclaimer: This is a partial list of where the militant organization has bases and where it operates. This does not include information on where the group conducts major attacks or has external influences.

The ELN claims to operate in areas of Colombia that are “stateless” (areas that receive no government attention or assistance).[162] The ELN had its headquarters in the Bolivar province until 2000, when the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) seized ELN territory.[163] The group is most present in the northeastern region of Colombia, where there are many oil fields, gold mines, and smuggling operations.[164] Since the demobilization of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2016, the ELN has occupied former FARC territory used for coca production and trafficking.[165] The ELN has continued expansion into FARC’s previous territory, as a result of FARC’s formal disarmament in 2017, inflating the ELN’s reported activity in at least two-thirds of Colombia’s 32 departments as of 2022, compared to past reports of 9 departments in July 2019.[166]

The ELN is a transnational organization, and it has been active in Venezuela since 1990.[167] It was named the “most significant armed group in both Colombia and Venezuela” by the U.S. Bureau of Counterterrorism in 2022 and the “most powerful guerrilla group” in Venezuela’s Bolívar state by InSight Crime in 2021.[168] As of January 2026, the ELN had operations in at least 8 of 24 Venezuelan states.[169] The ELN’s organizational structure does not include Venezuelan-based war fronts. However, the ELN’s close ties to the Venezuelan government extend its Northern, Eastern, and Northeastern war fronts’ presence and control of illegal operations throughout Venezuela.[170] Its operations are concentrated along the Colombian border departments of Norte de Santander and Arauca and their adjacent Venezuelan states of Zulia and Apure, per its Colombian-based Eastern War Front.[171] Through its expanding illegal gold mining and smuggling operations, the ELN has pushed eastward across Venezuela towards the Guyanese border.[172] While the ELN rapidly expanded its territory in Venezuela after 2017, its spread had stalled by 2021 due to conflicts with other armed groups.[173] As of 2026, the group has expanded its reach slightly, with active operations in 184 municipalities across 19 Colombian departments and eight Venezuelan states; however, its land holdings have remained relatively constant for the last five years.[174]

Strategy

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Ideology and Goals

The ELN began as a movement of students and Catholics, predominately radical priests, inspired by the Cuban Revolution.[175] These individuals believed that they represented the majority of Colombians: individuals with economic, political, and social grievances.[176] Additionally, the group sought to combat foreign influence in Colombia, and aimed to institute a popular democracy in place of the republican Colombian government.[177]

Originally, the group did not engage in drug trafficking and kidnapping. ELN leader and Catholic priest Father Manuel Pérez (alias “El Cura Pérez” or “Poliarcho”) refused to enter the drug trade because he opposed capitalistic excess.[178] Pérez shaped the ELN’s ideological foundation in line with his radical Catholic liberation theology perspective, which saw religion as a tool to reduce inequality between the privileged wealthy and the oppressed poor.[179] In 2000, ELN commander Antonio Garcia (legal name Eliécer Erlinto de Jesus Chamorro) stated that kidnapping — which he defined as “the negation of someone’s freedom against their wishes and where the kidnapper hides his identity, denies his own responsibility and has no intention of resolving the problems of the community” — contradicted the ELN’s purpose as a political group fighting against social and economic inequality.[180] He said that the ELN instead practiced “retention for economic reasons,” where the aim is to “try to benefit society;” however, despite Garcia’s definitional distinctions, in practice, “retention” is a euphemism for kidnapping.[181]

Since the mid-1970s, the ELN has been involved in illegal activities, appearing to drift from its ideological roots.[182] Under the leadership of Gabino (legal name Nicolás Rodríguez Bautista), the ELN increased its involvement in kidnappings, the drug trade, and extortion.[183] Drug trafficking has since become a powerful source of the group’s income, despite Gabino denying so in a 2020 statement.[184] The ELN also illegally mines gold throughout both Colombia and Venezuela, a trade that generates the majority of the group’s income and further separates it from its philosophically radical origins.[185]

Following the peace deal between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government in 2016, the ELN began to shift its focus to the demobilization of its armed forces and reintegration to society. In May 2019, ELN commander Pablo Beltrán (legal name Israel Ramírez Pinead) stated that the ELN’s goal is to end its conflict with the Colombian government and, in return, ensure protections and assistance for the poor throughout the country.[186] Despite the failure of the 2019 peace talks due to fatal retaliatory attacks between the Colombian government and the ELN, efforts reignited in 2022 and achieved unprecedented success. The first of six peace agenda items was signed in May 2024, centering on societal participation in peace and called for democratic and pluralistic involvement in addressing the political, economic, environmental, educational, and cultural conditions underlying the conflict.[187] Beltrán, the group’s chief negotiator, stated that the militant group is seeking a “great national agreement,” reflecting the ELN’s desire for a meaningful conclusion to the peace talks.[188]

However, in early May 2024, the ELN rescinded its pledge to stop kidnapping and thus had placed tension on its commitment to peace.[189] The ELN later rejected the renewal of the Bilateral, National and Temporary Ceasefire in August 2024, citing its funding dependency on kidnapping profits and the government’s history of breached ceasefires.[190] Ideological differences in the negotiation approach and leadership structure between the ELN’s national Central Command (COCE) and the southern Nariño-based war front in May 2024 resulted in a split; the new group refers to itself as the “Comuneros del Sur.”[191] The Colombian government agreed to negotiate with the Comenuros del Sur as an independent organization from the ELN.[192] The ELN’s Central Command denounced the splintered group’s talks, claiming them to be the work of Petro’s government to sow internal division and to put pressure on the Central Command in its own peace negotiations.[193]

In January 2025, the ELN launched a major military offensive in the Catatumbo region to seize control of cocaine production centers from former FARC dissidents, effectively derailing any negotiations as it led President Petro to formally suspend all dialogue, declaring that the group had "chosen the path of war.”[194] Analysts noted that this shift illustrated a growing "criminalization" of the group's fronts, where the pursuit of illicit criminal rents from drug trafficking and illegal mining often superseded its original political and ideological aspirations.[195]

In December 2025, the group significantly escalated its anti-imperialist rhetoric in response to threats of military intervention from the United States.[196] Framing its actions as a defense of national sovereignty, the ELN enforced a 72-hour national armed strike and conducted military drills to prepare for "imperialist intervention.”[197] During this period, ELN fighters openly displayed banners in its territory declaring that "Total peace is a failure.”[198]

However, despite its heightened aggression during this period, the group’s leadership signaled a conditional willingness to return to the negotiating table in December 2025.[199] Commander-in-Chief Antonio Garcia stated that the ELN remains open to resuming talks with either the current or future governments, provided the state honors previously agreed-upon commitments regarding humanitarian efforts and civic participation. He emphasized that any resumption of dialogue "cannot be a clean slate" and must build upon the progress achieved during the earlier rounds of negotiations.[200]

Political Activities

The ELN’s reconciliation attempts have lasted nearly forty years, pursuing its reintegration to civil society with nearly every elected president. The first attempts of the ELN’s peace talks began in 1987 as a process between the Simón Bolívar Guerrilla Coordinating Board (CGSB) guerrilla coalition and the Colombian government. The gradual demobilization of the CGSB’s members diminished its power, leaving the ELN and FARC as the coalition's main participants until their departure from peace talks under the Gaviria administration in 1992.[201]

The second peace effort began under the next president, Ernesto Samper Pizano. The Samper administration initiated informal peace discussions between Colombian officials and ELN leaders, and the parties reached a signed draft agreement for a National Convention between the ELN and the Colombian government in 1998.[202] The National Convention was intended to be a venue for popular participation and collective effort to restructure the country and its institutions for greater social justice.[203] However, the death of ELN leader Father Manuel Pérez (alias “El Cura Pérez” or “Poliarcho”) and the new presidential administration in 1998 complicated the development of the National Convention.[204] The ELN requested a demilitarized “Zone of Encounter” (ZOE) in 1999, but the administration of President Andrés Pastrana Arango rejected the demand.[205] The ELN responded to the rejection with a kidnapping campaign; it hijacked and kidnapped an Avianca flight of 46 people in April 1999 and kidnapped approximately 140 parishioners attending mass in Cali in May 1999.[206] The ELN’s kidnappings caused the Pastrana government to suspend negotiations and temporarily revoked the group’s political status.[207] However, in 2000, planning efforts started again with the aim of creating an inclusive democratic space wherein ELN members could reach a national consensus on the issues facing Colombia.[208]

Although the ELN and the government resumed negotiations in 2000, they ended in 2001 without agreement.[209] Both sides blamed the other for the failure. The ELN broke off negotiations due to the government’s campaign against its coca farms and the military’s alleged relationship with paramilitary organizations, and Pastrana’s government suspended the negotiations because of the ELN’s perceived lack of willingness for peace and cooperation.[210] When the peace talks failed in 2001, so did the opportunity to create a ZOE or a National Convention.[211]

After the failed peace negotiations with the Pastrana administration in 2001, the ELN adopted a new strategy to achieve its political goals. The group recognized and supported the Alternative Democratic Pole (PDA), a joint political party of the Independent Democratic Pole and the Democratic Alternative established in 2005, in opposition to the right-wing Colombian government.[212] In 2006, the PDA won 18 seats in the Congress of Colombia, 10 in the Senate and 8 in the House of Representatives.[213] Although it was not as successful in 2007, PDA candidate Samuel Morena Rojas won Bogotá’s mayoral election with the most votes in the city's history.[214] Since 2008, internal conflict and polarity have negatively affected the PDA’s growth, with disagreements over how to best oppose the Uribe administration’s legislative agenda, leading Luis Eduardo Garzon, one of the party’s leaders, to exit the party. In the 2018 election, the PDA only won 5 seats in the Senate, as well as 2 deputies.[215] In the 2022 Presidential election, the PDA joined the Historic Pact for Colombia Coalition with other left-wing and left-center Colombian parties and won the election with President Gustavo Petro, Vice President Francia Márquez, a plurality of Senate seats, and a significant number of Chamber seats.[216]

Despite the history of failed negotiations, the ELN entered into both informal talks and formal negotiations with the Colombian government throughout the terms of President Álvaro Uribe from 2002 to 2010.[217] In 2002, the two groups began to plan for talks; however, the parties suspended informal negotiations in 2003.[218] In 2005, the ELN and Uribe’s government, with the support of external actors like Mexico and the Catholic Church, began preliminary talks in the hopes of later entering into formal negotiations.[219] The goal of these negotiations was not only the disarmament and demobilization the ELN, but also the implementation of political and socioeconomic change on the part of the government.[220] In the lead-up to official negotiations in 2008, Uribe’s government demanded that the ELN stop its kidnapping and military activities, a condition that the ELN refused to accept.[221] The ELN viewed the government’s push for its a ceasefire as an action that should occur as a result of the peace negotiations rather than a forced precursory item.[222] Without any promise to halt hostilities or kidnapping, the government refused to initiate official talks with the ELN; the negotiations broke down in 2008.[223]

In 2012, the ELN tried to secure a seat at a peace conference between the government of President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).[224] Timochenko, a FARC leader, stated his explicit support for the inclusion of the ELN at the peace talks.[225] The ELN and the Colombian government formally entered peace negotiations in 2017. Anticipating Pope Francis’ visit to Colombia in 2017, the ELN proposed a bilateral ceasefire in June 2017, to which the Colombian government agreed in September 2017.[226] In October 2017, Santos’ government and the ELN formally entered the ceasefire, the first between the two actors.[227]

The bilateral ceasefire between the ELN and the Colombian government ended in January 2019, with the change in power from Santos to President Iván Duque. In 2019, Duque demanded that the ELN halt kidnapping and release hostages as a condition for the continuation of the peace talks, which the ELN refused.[228] The Colombian government suspended the peace talks indefinitely in January 2019 in response to the ELN’s deadly attack on a police academy in Bogotá.[229] In June 2019, President Duque called on the Cuban government to arrest and extradite ELN leadership who were present in Havana for the stalled peace talks.[230]

Since 2019, the Colombian government and ELN have held several periods of unilateral and bilateral ceasefires, peace dialogues, and attacks. The ELN has also substantially increased its affiliation with Venezuela’s Maduro government, even acting as informal agents alongside Venezuelan security forces on the border.[231] The ELN’s mutually beneficial relationship with Venezuelan local and state department officials has aided in its overall expansion in the territory.[232] Top ELN leaders and Central Command (COCE) members, Antonio Garcia (legal name Eliécer Erlinto de Jesus Chamorro) and Pablito (or “Carlos Marin Guarin,” legal name Gustavo Anibal Giraldo), have reportedly based their operations inside of Venezuela, using the nation as a political sanctuary away from the Colombian authorities.[233]

President Gustavo Petro’s election in 2022 raised hopes that the 60-year struggle between the ELN and the Colombian government could be peacefully resolved.[234] President Petro, a former leftist guerrilla himself, introduced the Paz Total (“Total Peace”) plan to relaunch formal peace negotiations with Colombia’s armed militant groups.[235] In 2022, Petro dismissed Duque’s warrants of arrest and extradition for the ELN’s leadership and sent a negotiation team to meet with the ELN leaders in Cuba; the ELN began to comply by releasing hostages.[236] The ELN’s southern war front, the Comuneros del Sur, dissented from the ELN in May 2024 due to its stated discontent with the Central Command’s “aggressive” approach.[237] The Colombian government has since successfully negotiated promising peace dialogues with the splintered group for peace in the Nariño province.[238]

The ELN and Colombian government made unprecedented progress in signing the first peace agenda item in May 2024, which focused on civic participation in the peace efforts.[239] The ELN’s reneged commitment to halt kidnapping in May 2024 and rejected ceasefire renewal in August 2024 complicated the group’s perceived political ambitions.[240] The ELN cited its Organized Armed Group (GAO) designation by the Colombian government and the group’s dependence on hostage payments as barriers to resuming the peace talks.[241] The ELN’s attack on a military base on September 17th, 2024, called President Petro to suggest an end to the peace talks with the group.[242] The ELN and Colombian government announced the resumed negotiations on November 7th, with a plan to meet in Venezuela from November 19th to 25th, though the talks produced no publicly recorded agreement[243]

The group’s political commander and chief negotiator, Pablo Beltrán (legal name Israel Ramírez Pineda), stated in a November 2024 interview that “with Petro, we no longer have time to demobilize” due to the upcoming 2026 presidential election, as Colombian presidents are limited to one 4-year term.[244] Beltrán’s concern is that a right-wing president could erase the progress made under the Petro administration, as had happened to the peace progress started under the Santos administration once the Duque administration took power.[245] Even with Petro still in office, attempts for peace seem fragile. The progress that was made in May 2024 was largely undone in January 2025, when the ELN launched a violent offensive in the Catatumbo region to gain control over key cocaine production hubs and drive out ex-FARC dissidents that displaced thousands and led to President Petro officially suspending all negotiations.[246] This suspension of talks further deepened existing tensions within the group; while the COCE withdrew from national-level talks, the Comuneros del Sur faction in Nariño split from the main group and continued its localized negotiations with the state.[247]

However, despite this breakdown, the ELN signaled by late 2025 that it was willing to return to the negotiating table. By October 2025, ELN chief negotiator Pablo Beltrán called for a “reset” of the negotiations, citing the need to stabilize rural regions before the May 2026 presidential elections.[248] In December 2025, Commander-in-Chief Antonio Garcia reaffirmed that the ELN remained conditionally open to dialogue, provided the government fulfilled prior humanitarian and development commitments.[249] However, analysts have noted that the group’s political credibility remains strained by its refusal to permanently renounce and stop kidnapping and its expanding use of weaponized drones against state infrastructure.[250]

The ELN has also long been attached to Venezuela’s autocratic political regime, despite not having formal representation within its national or municipal governments. Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election further proved the ELN’s political loyalty to Nicolás Maduro; the ELN was reported to be on the streets of Venezuelan border towns threatening citizens to vote for Maduro.[251] Even after Maduro’s arrest and transfer to the United States in January 2026, InSight Crime analysts report that as long as the ELN remains useful to the administration of acting president Delcy Rodríguez, existing agreements while likely remain in place, though it likely will be kept more low-profile.[252]

Targets And Tactics

During its early years, the ELN avoided engaging in illegal activity for ideological reasons. Following its near destruction in 1973, it shifted tactics and began robbing banks, assassinating military personnel, and kidnapping for ransom. By the 1980s, the group had become expert kidnappers, and kidnapping and extortion accounted for the majority of the group’s revenue.[253] By the late 1980s and early 1990s, the group had become involved in drug trading.[254]

In the 2000s, the ELN used kidnapping, extortion, bombings, assassinations, and hijacking to achieve its objectives.[255] It primarily targeted oil company employees for their wealth and because of their foreign identity.[256] In 2013, the ELN declared war on oil companies for allegedly “plundering the country’s natural resources.”[257] It attacked the infrastructure of local towns, including oil pipelines and electricity pylons.[258] In 2014, the group engaged in preliminary peace talks with the Colombian government. However, its refusal to stop engaging in engaging in kidnappings for financial purposes deferred the start of the talks until 2017.[259] Throughout the 2017-2019 peace talks, the ELN carried out attacks while calling for peace and the cessation of military activities.[260] During this period, the group also continued to target oil companies and police officers.[261]

In May 2024, the ELN retracted its pledge to stop civilian kidnapping, despite it being a necessary condition of the Bilateral, National and Temporary Ceasefire, due to its reliance on ransom payouts from the kidnappings.[262] Though the ceasefire averted violence targeting Colombian officials, the ELN increased its targeting of other organizations, including those comprised of ex-FARC dissidents and members of the Gaitanistas (known as the Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia, the AGC, the Gulf Clan, and formerly Los Urabeños), a Colombian drug trafficking group with a significant presence in Venezuela.[263] The ELN is frequently involved in “violent clashes” with other organizations where they often function as the primary aggressor. These clashes have displaced thousands of civilians.[264]

The ELN targets armed groups in Venezuela as well, while also acting as an informal military power alongside Venezuelan forces.[265] Joint ELN and Venezuelan troops target ex-FARC dissidents in the border region, and Human Rights Watch has reported that these operations have led to numerous human rights abuses including “killings, disappearances, child recruitment, and forced displacement.”[266]

In 2025, the ELN continued and expanded its deployment of weaponized commercial photography drones against state security forces.[267] These devices were often rigged with explosives and flown directly into targets. The ELN was largely responsible for a four-times increase in drone-related violence in Colombia from the previous year, with there being approximately 150 drone attacks by militant groups within the country in 2025. Notable drone operations included a July 2025 strike on a military patrol in El Carmen that killed three soldiers and injured 8 and a December 2025 attack on the Capitán Antonio Ricaurte military base in Cesar that killed seven officers.[268] This period also saw an increased reliance on other indiscriminate explosives, such as cylinder bombs, which contributed to a 145% rise in civilian casualties from explosive.[269]

In December 2025, the ELN conducted its first national armed strike since 2022, paralyzing movement across 13 departments through threats of violence, the placement of bombs on major roadways, and the burning of commercial buses.[270] These strikes were a response to United States President Donald Trump’s threats of military intervention in any country involved in the production and selling of cocaine to the United States.[271] They were framed as military exercise to prepare preparations to defend against Trump’s potential "imperialist intervention," and civilians were ordered by the group to remain indoors for 72 hours during the operation.[272]

Such tactics of control were particularly used in the Catatumbo region, where the group’s January 2025 offensive against the 33rd Front of FARC dissidents led to an increase in overall violence in the area and involved the systematic use of forced confinement, targeted killings of social leaders, and the mass displacement of over 64,000 civilians accused of collaborating with rivals.[273] Venezuela also played a critical role in this operation. The country acted as a staging ground through which the ELN could move troops and launch attacks against the other side of the border.[274] By early 2026, the ELN’s tactics continued to be defined by its "binational" role where it maintains traditional insurgent tactics against the Colombian state, but in Venezuela functions as a pro-government paramilitary force.[275]

Attacks

Disclaimer: These are some selected major attacks in the militant organization's history. It is not a comprehensive listing but captures some of the most famous attacks or turning points during the campaign.

January 7, 1965: The ELN seized Simacota, a small town in Santander. Following the attack, founder Fabio Vásquez Castaño, along with Victor Medina Moron, read the ELN’s proclamation that announced its existence as a group (unknown killed, unknown wounded).[276]

October 13, 1998: The ELN’s José Antonio Galán Front blew up a pipeline in the Department of Antioquia (45+ killed, 70+ wounded).[277]

April 1999: The ELN hijacked an Avianca flight and forced it to land in a remote area of Colombia. It then took all 43 passengers and crew hostage. Some were released immediately upon landing, but 35 persons were held hostage for over one year (0 killed, unknown wounded).[278]

May 1999: The ELN kidnapped 143-186 people from a church in Cali. Eighty-four were released soon after, and five shortly after that. By September 10, 1999, the ELN had released all remaining hostages. At the time of the abduction, the incident was considered the largest kidnapping in Colombian history (0 killed, unknown wounded).[279]

June 2011: An ELN member drove a car filled with explosives into Popayan in the province of Cauca. The bomb exploded before police could clear the surrounding area (1 killed, 16 wounded).[280]

Summer 2013: The ELN kidnapped a Canadian mining official, Gernot Wober, and held him for ransom. It then released Wober to the Colombian government in exchange for entering preliminary peace negotiations (0 killed, 0 wounded).[281]

January 2014: The ELN blew up four crude oil holding pools in the department of Norte de Santander (North Santander) along the Caño Limon-Coveñas pipeline. The fires created by the explosion forced residents to flee their homes (unknown killed, unknown wounded).[282]

June-July 2014: The ELN successfully attacked 10 different pieces of energy infrastructure in Colombia, including wells, pipelines, and mines. The attacks were part of its war on oil companies, which it declared in late 2013.[283] They were also speculated to be an effort by the ELN to gain the Colombian government’s attention and secure a role in ongoing peace negotiations (unknown killed, unknown wounded).[284]

December 2014: The ELN kidnapped a Colombian mayor, Fredy Palacios, while he and 16 others were on a boat. The group claimed that he was “stealing money from the municipal budget” and would be released following an organized corruption trial. Palacios was released in March 2015, though it is unclear if a trial ever took place (0 killed, unknown wounded).[285]

July 3, 2015: The ELN set off two explosions in Bogotá, one in the financial district and one in the industrial area (unknown killed, 8+ wounded).[286]

January 9-12, 2018: The ELN carried out at least 14 attacks after the Colombian government failed to extend its ceasefire with the group. In these attacks, the group bombed the Caño Limón-Coveñas pipeline in Colombia and killed several members of the Colombian armed forces (3 killed, 2 wounded).[287]

January 28, 2018: The ELN attacked a police academy in Barranquilla. President Santos halted the government’s peace negotiations with the ELN following the attack, and he recalled the government’s delegation from the ongoing peace talks being hosted in Quito, Ecuador. (5 killed, 40+ wounded).[288]

January 17, 2019: The ELN set off a car bomb outside the General Santander School, a police academy. This attack was the deadliest car bomb since a FARC-detonated bomb in 2003. Authorities claim that the ELN’s weapons expert, Jose Aldemar Rojas, drove the car and died during the attack. President Duque reinstated Interpol’s warrants for the ELN delegation at the peace talks in Cuba and suspended the concurrent peace talks in response to this attack. (21+ killed, 24+ wounded).[289]

September 17, 2024: The ELN attacked a military base in Arauca with the detonation of an explosive-filled truck, killing two and wounding twenty-seven. This fatal attack temporarily ended the ELN’s peace negotiations.[290]

January 16, 2025: The ELN launched a major military offensive in the Catatumbo region of Norte de Santander targeting the 33rd Front of FARC dissidents. The campaign involved targeted killings and forced displacements, marking the bloodiest period in the region in decades (80–100+ killed, 12 wounded).[291]

July 20, 2025: ELN militants utilized a weaponized commercial photography drone to attack a military patrol in a rural area outside the town of El Carmen in the Catatumbo region, marking one of its first high-fatality drone operations. (3 killed, 8 wounded).[292]

December 14–17, 2025: The ELN enforced a 72-hour national armed strike across 13 departments, utilizing cylinder bombs to paralyze travel on major roadways. Specific violent incidents during the strike included an attack on a police station in Norte de Santander and a bombing in Cali that targeted security forces (3+ killed, 1+ wounded).[293]

December 2025 - January 2026: The ELN intensified a military offensive in the Catatumbo region against FARC dissidents to secure control over cocaine production centers and border smuggling routes. The operation was notable for the simultaneous use of armed drones by both groups to target each other and suspected civilian collaborators. It resulted in the displacement of over 2,000 people into the city of Cúcuta (Unknown killed, unknown wounded).[294]

Interactions

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Designated / Listed

United States Foreign Terrorist Organizations List: 1997 to Present[295]
European Union’s Common Position 2001/931/CFSP: 2002 to Present[296]
Canada’s Listed Terrorist Entities: 2003 to Present[297]
New Zealand’s Designated Terrorist Entities List: 2010 to Present[298]

Community Relations

In the 1990s and the early 2000s, the ELN stressed the value of community involvement. In 1998, it pushed for a National Convention, which would have served as a venue for popular participation to tackle issues such as human rights, economic policy, drug trafficking, political participation, natural resources, and the armed forces.[299] The ELN met with members of civil society in 1998 to sign an agreement focusing on humanitarian issues.[300]

Though the ELN aims to improve civilians’ lives by addressing social issues and encouraging civil involvement, its violent methodology is highly controversial. In 1999, over 13 million Colombians marched in the No Más protests in 15 cities calling for peace and demanding a ceasefire between rebel groups, including the ELN, and the Colombian government.[301] The protests served as an illustration of the Colombian people’s dissatisfaction with guerrilla violence. Support for President Álvaro Uribe throughout his presidency (2002-2010) was a further indication of Colombia’s negative sentiments about guerrilla activity in the country. Uribe’s crackdown on leftist guerrillas in Colombia increased his approval rating to 82%, symbolizing the Colombian public’s disapproval of guerrilla activity and organizations, including the ELN.[302] The ELN damaged its relationship with the Colombian community further through its 2019 attack on a Colombian police academy. The attack was highly condemned throughout Colombia, and there were widespread protests against the ELN in response.[303]

Despite mutual skepticism from ELN leadership and the Colombian government regarding the renewed peace talks in 2022, the commitment to incorporate popular input into the ELN’s peace process constituted the talks’ primary agenda item. The first signed agreement between the ELN and the Colombian government in May 2024 emphasized societal participation in the Total Peace plan. The temporary ceasefire from October 2023 to August 2024 between the ELN and the Colombian government decreased the amount of violence affecting civilians; however, conflicts between the ELN and other armed organizations continued to affect vulnerable, rural, and indigenous communities through displacement and forced recruitment.[304]

The ELN’s community involvement is not limited to its engagement with the Colombian populace. As the ELN has spread to Venezuela, it has formed relationships with Venezuelan local communities. In 2019, the ELN was reported to be providing social services, like food and infrastructure development programs, to local populations in the country.[305] In return, the ELN recruits local support and workers for its illegal gold mines.[306] Often, these ELN recruits are children or minors from the indigenous communities who are virtually forced to live on the militant group’s violent frontlines.[307]

The ELN has also participated in the repression of Venezuelans alongside the Maduro administration.[308] Venezuelan civilians voiced dissatisfaction with the Maduro regime’s ties to the ELN during the January 2019 protests against his government.[309] However, Venezuelans have also expressed sentiments of increased safety in the presence of the ELN’s control.[310] The strict regulations from the militant group in the state of Apure have benefited rural communities with food, income, protection, political education, and social support, despite significant disappearances of indigenous members.[311] The recruiting of the Venezuelan ELN forces parallels the Colombian structure, targeting former FARC ideological bases in vulnerable and poor indigenous communities.[312]

By early 2025, the ELN’s relationship with the Colombian populace was severely strained by its major military offensive in the Catatumbo region.[313] The group’s campaign to regain territorial control resulted in the targeted killing of over 80 civilians, including social leaders and former FARC combatants perceived as rival collaborators, and triggered the displacement of more than 64,000 people.[314] This humanitarian crisis led international human rights organizations and the UN to urge the ELN to cease its violations of international humanitarian law and adopt a truce to protect vulnerable peasant and indigenous communities.[315] Throughout 2025, the ELN’s adoption of weaponized drones further alienated rural populations; in Norte de Santander, farmers reported a pervasive climate of fear, noting that the constant humming of drones over their fields impeded their ability to work and sustain their livelihoods.[316]

The group’s social control intensified in December 2025, when the group ordered a 72-hour national armed strike, utilizing "criminal coercion" to force civilians in 13 departments to remain indoors while the group conducted military exercises.[317] While the group rhetorically framed these lockdowns as a defense of the "homeland" against potential U.S. intervention threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump, the strikes primarily paralyzed local commerce and transport, leading to further public disenchantment with the group’s political claims.[318] In border municipalities, the ELN continued to exploit the Venezuelan refugee crisis and poor indigenous populations, utilizing them as a primary recruitment base and forced workforce for its illegal gold mining enclaves.[319]

As of early 2026, in Venezuela, the group continues to function as a pro-government force, providing social services such as food distribution, infrastructure programs, and political education to rural communities in exchange for territorial loyalty.[320] However, this support is often maintained through the repression of dissent and the systematic recruitment of minors from indigenous communities.[321] Abductions continue to remain common in Colombia, as the group continues to rely on kidnapping to generate revenue from ransom payments; it was reportedly responsible for nearly one in five kidnappings within the country in 2025, a trend that analysts noted has significantly eroded the group’s popular legitimacy and could increase public support for candidates favoring a harsher approach to the ELN ahead of the May 2026 elections.[322]

Relationships With Other Groups

The ELN has had mixed relationships with several groups, insurgencies and drug-trafficking organizations alike. The ELN has been both rivals and allies with the April 19 Movement (M-19), the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and the People’s Liberation Army (EPL). Between 1987 and 1994, the ELN participated in the Simón Bolívar Guerrilla Coordinating Board (CGSB), an umbrella guerrilla coalition that originally included the M-19, the EPL, the ELN, and the FARC.[323] The CGSB was an ELN initiative, created in 1987, following the collapse of peace talks of 1984.[324] By 1991, the FARC, ELN, and the Popular Liberation Army (EPL) were the last remaining members of the CGSB, as all of the other groups had demobilized and signed peace agreements with the Colombian government.[325] The CGSB dissolved in 1992 after failed peace talks between the FARC, the ELN, and the Colombian government.[326]

The ELN frequently cooperated with the FARC from 2008 until the latter’s demobilization in 2016. In May 2008, the ELN sent a letter to FARC’s Secretariat, a governing council of the group’s seven highest leaders, expressing its interest in cooperating.[327] The ELN’s choice to continue fighting amidst a hiatus in the 2008 peace talks prompted its decision to reach out to the FARC and was further motivated to cooperate because it believed that the two groups had common enemies: the Colombian state and paramilitaries.[328] However, peace talks between the FARC and Colombian government began in 2012 that excluded the ELN.[329] FARC’s chief commander, Timochenko, released a statement in May 2015 calling for the ELN’s inclusion in the negotiations, stating that it was “necessary and urgent for the government and for the Colombian people.”[330] The FARC and Colombian government’s peace talks, however, concluded in 2016 without an invitation to participate ever being sent to the ELN.[331]

The demobilization of the FARC in 2016 led to the creation of many ex-FARC dissident groups (i.e., those FARC members who have refused to demobilize and accept the peace deal), falling under the “Ex-FARC Mafia” categorization.[332]

“Ex-FARC Mafia” groups have had various different relationships with the ELN. According to Colombian political publication La Silla Vacía in 2019, the ELN has since coordinated drug trafficking operations with ex-FARC dissidents.[333] The ELN and ex-FARC dissidents met in Venezuela in 2019, with top leaders allegedly attending the meeting.[334] Analysts speculated at the time that the two groups had agreed to a non-aggression pact after years of competition in the coca-producing regions of Arauca in Colombia and Apure in Venezuela.[335] Though there is no evidence of an official agreement between the national ex-FARC dissident fronts and the ELN, there are indications of non-aggression pacts between some ex-FARC dissident fronts and the ELN.[336]

The formation of the ex-FARC dissident group, the Segunda Marquetalia or FARC-SM, in 2019 called on the ELN to renew the CGSB umbrella guerrilla coalition to no avail.[337] While FARC-SM failed to restore the guerrilla coalition, it maintained a “makeshift alliance” with the ELN along the Colombian-Venezuelan border region for several years per peace agreements between leaders of the two groups in 2019, although the groups reportedly clashed in 2022.[338] Despite having maintained these non-aggression pacts in the Venezuelan states of Apure and Amazonas in order to divide criminal revenues, this coordination ended in August 2025 after the ELN ambushed and killed José Manuel Sierra Sabogal (alias “Zarco Aldinever”), FARC-SM's second-in-command.[339] This assassination triggered a series of retaliatory clashes along the border, signaling a breakdown of the strategic cooperation that had characterized their relationship in Venezuelan territory.[340]

While the ELN maintained a peaceful relationship with FARC-SM for a period, its relationship with the other major FARC dissident group, the Central General Staff (Estado Mayor Central or EMC), has largely been adversarial, and the ELN has been one of its main rivals.[341] Clashes between the EMC and the ELN forced the EMC out of its Venezuelan Apure territory in 2022, despite previously respected non-aggression pacts between the two groups.[342] Civilians are forced to bear the consequences of violence between the ELN and FARC dissident groups, leading approximately 12,000 people to be either forcibly displaced or restrictively confined too certain areas in 2022, according to a Human Rights Watch report. The ex-FARC Mafia’s 10th front aligns with the EMC, and thus also clashes violently with the ELN.[343]

Relations between the ELN and the 33rd Front, another FARC dissident group, recently turned violent as well as well. In the Catatumbo region, a previous non-aggression pact between the two groups officially collapsed in January 2025.[344] The ELN launched a massive military offensive to expel the 33rd Front—which is part of the dissident faction led by Calarcá Córdoba—and seize exclusive control over the region's cocaine production enclaves and border smuggling routes.[345] By 2026, the ELN had emerged as the dominant force in Norte de Santander and Cesar, having largely displaced both the 33rd Front.[346]

In addition to coordinating and fighting with ex-FARC dissidents, the ELN has also recruited former FARC members.[347] By 2019, the ELN had gained an additional 1,000 combatants, many of whom were former FARC members who refused to disarm and demobilize after the main group’s official demobilization and peace deal with the Colombian government in 2016 .[348]

The ELN has turned to other partners in the drug trade, beyond former FARC members, since the FARC’s demobilization in 2016. Beginning in 2016-2017, the ELN had collaborated with drug cartels, like Los Rastrojos, in order to maintain its income from illegal drug trafficking.[349] Since 2019, however, the Rastrojos have become minor rivals of the ELN, despite having lost substantial territorial influence. The Rastrojos are now increasingly reliant on alliances with the Gaitanista Army (known as the Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia, the AGC, the Gulf Clan, and formerly known as Los Urabeños) and at the cusp of absorption into the group.[350] The ELN has also developed close ties and received support from the notorious Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel, which in turn benefits by gaining secure access to a lucrative cocaine supply chain.[351]

The ELN has both cooperated and competed with the Gaitanistas (known as the Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia, the AGC, the Gulf Clan, and formerly known as Los Urabeños), a Colombian paramilitary group and the country’s largest drug cartel. InSight Crime reported collaboration between the ELN and the Gaitanistas in the coca production and trade in the town of Simití and a non-aggression pact in 2016.[352] However, since 2018, the Gaitanistas have become the ELN’s main rival.[353] From February to March 2019, clashes between the two groups led to the forced confinement of approximately 2,800 people in Bojayá, a city along two major drug trafficking routes in northern Colombia.[354] Confrontations between the two groups have significantly increased since the COVID-19 pandemic as they continue to fight for control over major drug trafficking and illegal mining areas in Colombia.[355] The rivalry has also caused the ELN to lose territory in some of its historically dominated departments, such as Antioquia and Choco, as well as the continued displacement and confinement of thousands of civilians.[356]

The group’s rivalry with the Gaitanistas intensified throughout 2025 as the two groups engaged in violent territorial disputes over strategic corridors for drug trafficking and illegal gold mining.[357] These clashes were most concentrated in the departments of Antioquia and Chocó. By early 2026, analysts noted that the Gaitanistas’ expansion remained one of the most significant military threats to the ELN's territorial consolidation in western Colombia.[358]

Similar to the ELN’s relationship with the Rastrojos, the Ejército Popular de Liberación (EPL) has lost its influential significance against the ELN and no longer poses a threat to the militant group or the Colombian government. This contrasts with historical relations between the groups, where the EPL maintained a stronger presence in the Catatumbo region and engaged in violent competition with the ELN over regional drug networks.[359]

Due to its significant presence in Venezuela, the ELN is in regular contact with local Venezuelan groups. Its growing presence in Venezuela’s illegal gold mining industry has created competition with sindicatos, or Venezuelan crime syndicates.[360] The ELN has both cooperated and competed with these groups, having pushed the sindicatos from their former mining territories and taxed and bought the gold that those groups produced.[361]

Although the ELN has faced some competition from sindicatos, it has cooperated with colectivos, Venezuela’s pro-Maduro paramilitary collectives.[362] The group has joined the Venezuelan collectives on several occasions, blocking humanitarian aid along the Colombian-Venezuelan border in 2018 and attacking a demonstration hosting President Juan Guaidó after he declared himself interim president in January 2019 following the claim Nicolas Maduro’s re-election was illegitimate. However, the ELN’s strongest ally in Venezuela remains the Maduro government itself.[363]

State Sponsors And External Influences

Venezuela as the ELN’s safe haven

The Venezuelan government shares an extensive political history with the ELN as the militant group’s most essential ally, though the administration of former President Nicolás Maduro denied its affiliation with the group.[364] In 1999, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez began an amicable relationship with the ELN and other insurgent groups upon his election.[365] During peace talks with the Colombian government in the mid-2000s, the ELN received support and assistance from Chávez. In January 2008, Chávez publicly declared the ELN, along with the FARC, to be “insurgent forces that have political protection” as opposed to their more common designation as terrorist organizations.[366] In response, the ELN thanked the Venezuelan government for its recognition and legitimization of the ELN’s political motivations.[367]

In February 2019, the ELN declared its commitment to defend then-president Nicolás Maduro’s government and to protect Venezuela in the case of a U.S. military intervention.[368] The alliance between the ELN and the Venezuelan armed forces, the Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana (FANB), continued to affirm the ELN’s relationship with Maduro’s government.[369]

Although the ELN and the FANB faced disputes in 2018, the actors have continued to work as unofficial allies.[370] In 2020, the two worked together to critically damage the territorial control and influence of the Rastrojos, which also originated in Colombia but was opposed to the Maduro regime, in Venezuela.[371] The ELN has been described as a “paramilitary force” of Maduro’s government, sharing profits with Venezuelan officials to expand its illegal gold mining, drug trafficking, smuggling, and local taxing operations.[372]

Venezuela has also long served as a sanctuary for ELN members from the pursuit of the Colombian government.[373] The ELN’s current top leaders in the Central Command (COCE) have been reported to operate within Venezuela’s borders since as early as 2009.[374] The ELN utilized its alliance and control of the Venezuelan border region to interfere with the nation’s electoral politics for the benefit of Maduro and his allies. In November 2021, the ELN forced Táchira state residents to vote for the pro-Maduro gubernatorial candidate, and in 2023, the ELN reportedly threatened Maduro’s political opponent, though the ELN denied this claim.[375]

Analysts are concerned about the ELN’s external relations transforming into a larger conflict. In particular, they have speculated that the ELN’s operations along the Colombian-Venezuelan border may generate tensions between the two countries that have been historically hostile with each other. Since 2022, however, Colombian President Gustavo Petro has re-opened the Colombian-Venezuelan border and actively incorporated Venezuelan leadership into the Colombian Total Peace plan. Specifically, Petro’s peace plan relies on Venezuela as a sincere guarantor nation to aid the Colombian-ELN peace negotiations. Analysts maintain the importance of Venezuela’s position as an actor in the Colombian peace, stating that “as long as the ELN is allowed to operate in Venezuelan territory, then there will be no peace.”[376]

As Colombia’s peace talks with the ELN weakened, the ELN’s power in Venezuela has maintained its strength. The ELN has aided the Venezuelan government as a paramilitary group since first receiving support from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in 1999.[377] Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, continued to enable the ELN’s influence and behaviors in Venezuela, allowing its illegal gold mining and coca trafficking with the beneficial return of powerful and loyal non-state actors.[378] The ties between the ELN and the Venezuelan government led to the ELN’s enduring commitment to the autocratic Maduro regime.[379] During the July 2024 election campaign, the ELN was reported to be seen on the streets of border states, pressuring and threatening Venezuelans to vote for Maduro.[380] Maduro’s heavily disputed re-election victory indicated another six years of a Venezuelan safe haven for the ELN’s illicit practices alongside Venezuela’s political and military forces.[381]

The ELN’s strategic positioning in Venezuela underwent a period of some upheaval following the January 3, 2026, capture of Maduro by United States forces. Despite the removal of Maduro to stand trial in the U.S. for "narco-terrorism conspiracy," the ELN reportedly maintained established communication channels with the remaining Venezuelan officials.[382] Additionally, following the U.S. operation against Maduro, ELN Commander-in-Chief Antonio García vowed to "defend the homeland against foreign aggression," signaling a nationalist rhetorical alignment with rival FARC dissident leader Ivan Mordisco again.[383]

Cuba

Cuba has historically supported the ELN both financially and politically. During the ELN’s early years, Cuba supported the group financially by providing weapons to ELN militants.[384] However, Cuba stopped providing weapons and training to the ELN in 1991.[385] Cuba has since supported the ELN politically, hosting peace talks between the ELN and the Colombian government from 2017-2019.[386] After the disintegration of the peace talks in 2019, Cuba refused the Colombian government’s extradition and arrest requests for the ELN’s peace delegation.[387] Since the restored peace dialogues in 2022, however, Cuba has supported the peace endeavors as a guarantor of the peace negotiations.[388] Cuba hosted the third round of talks in Havana, where the initial six-month Bilateral, National and Temporary Ceasefire agreement was signed in May 2023.[389]

The Catholic Church

The Catholic Church has influenced the ELN since its creation in 1964. In its founding years, the ELN subscribed to Catholic Liberation Theology, a doctrine that combines Marxism with Jesus’ focus on the poor and oppressed to stress the needs of those communities.[390] The Catholic influence further developed the ELN’s ideology through its most influential members who were radicalized former priests, including the martyred Father Torres or former ELN Central Command (COCE) leader, Father Manuel Peréz.[391] Although the ideology and actions of the ELN have changed over the group's lifetime, it remains influenced by the Catholic Church. The ELN has historically called upon the Catholic Church to help it negotiate with the Colombian government. During its on-and-off talks with President Uribe's government from 2002-2008, the Catholic Church acted as a guarantor.[392] In 2015, the ELN asked the Catholic Church in Colombia to help it negotiate a ceasefire with the Colombian government.[393] In 2017, the ELN initiated a ceasefire in anticipation of the Pope Francis’ visit to Colombia.[394] The Catholic Church continues to act as a monitoring mechanism for ceasefires and negotiations between the ELN and the Colombian government.[395] In January 2024, President Petro further stated his desire to “deepen” the Catholic Church’s involvement in the ongoing peace talks during his meeting with Pope Francis in the Vatican.[396]

Ecuador’s Severed Ties

The government of Ecuador had previously supported negotiations between the ELN and the Colombian government, hosting peace talks between the group and Duque’s government in 2016.[397] However, the Ecuadorian government removed itself from the peace talks in 2018 after Colombian FARC dissidents held hostage and killed two Ecuadorian journalists and their driver.[398] Ecuador has since remained withdrawn from the ELN-Colombian peace process as of May 2026.[399]

Other External Connections

Though there is no observable evidence that this group receives external support from the following foreign governments or third parties, these actors are tied to the ELN’s peace talks as guarantor nations and accompanying countries or organizations, respectively: Brazil, Chile, Norway, and Mexico as well as Germany, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, and the Special Representative of the UN.[400]

Footnotes

Footnotes:

[1] Osterling, Jorge P. Democracy In Colombia: Clientelist Politics and Guerrilla Warfare. New Brunswick, U.S.A.: Transaction, 1989.

[2] “We can’t take it any more: thousands flee guerrilla clashes on Colombia-Venezuela border.” The Guardian. By Sibylla Brodzinsky. 9 Jan. 2026. Web. 22 Feb. 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/09/clashes-colombia-venezuela-border-after-maduro-capture

[3] “National Liberation Army (Colombia).” Terrorist Organization Profile. National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism – University of Maryland. N.d. Web. 23 July 2015. http://www.start.umd.edu/tops/terrorist_organization_profile.asp?id=218; “Profiles: Colombia’s armed groups.” BBC Latin America & Caribbean. BBC News. 29 August 2013. Web. 23 July 2015. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-11400950

[4] "El Legado Del "Ché" Dentro Del Ejército De Liberación Nacional De Colombia/ The Legacy of Che within Colombia's National Liberation Army." CeDeMA.Org. Centro De Documentación De Los Movimientos Armados, October 8, 2008. https://cedema.org/digital_items/2869.

[5] Craig-Best, Liam. “Interview with ELN Commander Antonio García.” Colombia Journal. N.p. 27 August 2000. Web. 23 July 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20040611154302/http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia25.htm; “National Liberation Army (Colombia).” Terrorist Organization Profile. National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism – University of Maryland. N.d. Web. 23 July 2015. http://www.start.umd.edu/tops/terrorist_organization_profile.asp?id=218; Osterling, Jorge P. Democracy In Colombia : Clientelist Politics and Guerrilla Warfare. New Brunswick, U.S.A.: Transaction, 1989; Sacquety, Troy J. PHD. "Forty Years of Insurgency: Colombia's Main Opposition Groups." Veritas 2, no. 4 (2006). https://arsof-history.org/articles/v2n4_40years_insurgency_page_1.html.

[6] Colombia Reports. "National Liberation Army (ELN)." Colombia Reports. Colombia Reports, May 14, 2022. https://colombiareports.com/eln/.

[7] García-Peña, Daniel. "The National Liberation Army (ELN) Creates a Different Peace Proces." Nacla.Org. The North American Congress on Latin America, September 25, 2007. https://nacla.org/article/national-liberation-army-eln-creates-different-peace-proces; Klobucista, Claire, and Danielle Renwick. "Colombia's Civil Conflict." Council on Foreign Relations. Council on Foreign Relations, January 11, 2017. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/colombias-civil-conflict.

[8] “ELN.” InSight Crime. N.p. N.d. Web. 23 July 2015. http://www.insightcrime.org/colombia-organized-crime-news/eln-profile; Edling, Zach. “ELN.” COLOMBIA REPORTS. N.p. 22 October 2012. Web. 30 July 2015. http://colombiareports.com/eln/

[9] “ELN INSURGENCY IN COLOMBIA 1966-PRESENT.” ON WAR. N.p. N.d. Web. 12 August 2015. https://www.onwar.com/aced/chrono/c1900s/yr60/fcolombia1966.htm; “ELN.” InSight Crime. N.p. N.d. Web. 23 July 2015. http://www.insightcrime.org/colombia-organized-crime-news/eln-profile

[10] Sacquety, Troy J. PHD. "Forty Years of Insurgency: Colombia's Main Opposition Groups." Veritas 2, no. 4 (2006). Accessed June 2, 2024. https://arsof-history.org/articles/v2n4_40years_insurgency_page_1.html.

[11] “National Liberation Army (Colombia).” Terrorist Organization Profile. National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism – University of Maryland. N.d. Web. 23 July 2015. http://www.start.umd.edu/tops/terrorist_organization_profile.asp?id=218

[12] McDermott, Jeremy. “Colombia’s ELN rebels show new vigour.” BBC. BBC News. 5 November 2009. Web. 23 July 2015. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8341093.stm

[13] “ELN.” InSight Crime. N.p. N.d. Web. 23 July 2015. http://www.insightcrime.org/colombia-organized-crime-news/eln-profile

[14] McDermott, Jeremy. “Colombia’s ELN rebels show new vigour.” BBC. BBC News. 5 November 2009. Web. 23 July 2015. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8341093.stm; “ELN.” InSight Crime. N.p. N.d. Web. 23 July 2015. http://www.insightcrime.org/colombia-organized-crime-news/eln-profile

[15] “ELN.” InSight Crime. N.p. N.d. Web. 23 July 2015. http://www.insightcrime.org/colombia-organized-crime-news/eln-profile

[16] Colombia Reports, “History of Peace Talks With Colombia’s ELN Guerrillas,” Colombia Reports, October 26, 2016, https://colombiareports.com/history-peace-talks-colombia-eln/

[17] “ELN.” InSight Crime. N.p. N.d. Web. 23 July 2015. http://www.insightcrime.org/colombia-organized-crime-news/eln-profile

[18] “Colombian rebels seek FARC truce.” BBC News. BBC. 24 May 2009. Web. 23 July 2015. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8066191.stm

[19] McDermott, Jeremy. “Colombia’s ELN rebels show new vigour.” BBC. BBC News. 5 November 2009. Web. 23 July 2015. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8341093.stm

[20] Molinski, Dan. “Colombian Rebel Group Steps Up Violence.” The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company. 15 January 2013. Web. 23 July 2015. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323596204578241902662204058

[21] United States Department of State. "Country Reports on Terrorism 2012 - Colombia." Refworld: Global Law & Policy Database. United States Department of State, May 30, 2013. https://www.refworld.org/reference/annualreport/usdos/2013/en/54303; Beittel, June S. "Peace Talks in Colombia." Refworld: Global Law & Policy Database. United States Congressional Research Service, March 1, 2013. https://www.refworld.org/reference/countryrep/uscrs/2013/en/91140.

[22] United States Department of State. "Country Reports on Terrorism 2013 - Colombia." Refworld: Global Law & Policy Database. United States Department of State, April 30, 2014. https://www.refworld.org/reference/annualreport/usdos/2014/en/99009.

[23] “ELN.” InSight Crime. N.p. N.d. Web. 23 July 2015. http://www.insightcrime.org/colombia-organized-crime-news/eln-profile; Gligorevic, Tihomir. “Colombia: Peace Talks With ELN To Begin In September.” InSerbia Network Foundation. N.p. 7 August 2015. Web. 10 August 2015. http://inserbia.info/today/2015/08/colombia-peace-talks-with-eln-to-begin-in-september/.

[24] "Colombia: Events of 2014." Human Rights Watch. February 24, 2015. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/world-report-2015-colombia; "Colombia: Events of 2015." Human Rights Watch. February 29, 2016. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2016/country-chapters/colombia.

[25] "Colombia: Events of 2016." Human Rights Watch, January 13, 2017. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/colombia.

[26] "Colombia: Events of 2016." Human Rights Watch, January 13, 2017. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/colombia.

[27] "Colombia: Events of 2017." Human Rights Watch, January 16, 2018. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2018/country-chapters/colombia; "Colombia: Bilateral Ceasefire with the ELN, a Historic Step Forward." Www.Amnesty.Org. Amnesty International, September 5, 2017. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/09/colombia-bilateral-ceasefire-with-the-eln-a-historic-step-forward-2/.

[28] Orjoux, Alanne, and Lauren Said-Moorhouse. "ELN Claims Responsibility for Bogota Car Bomb that Killed 20 at a Policy Academy." CNN World. CNN, January 21, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/21/americas/colombia-car-bomb-eln/index.html; Murphy, Helen. "Colombia's ELN Rebels Say Deadly Car Bomb Was Legitimate Act of War." Reuters, January 21, 2019. https://www.reuters.com/article/world/colombia-s-eln-rebels-say-deadly-car-bomb-was-legitimate-act-of-war-idUSKCN1PF13R/.

[29] Charles, Mathew. "'People Are Tired of War, Including Us'-A Rare Interview With Colombia's ELN Commander." World Politics Review. 08 May 2019. Web. 02 July 2019. https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/27827/people-are-tired-of-war-including-us-a-rare-interview-with-colombia-s-eln-commander.

[30] Murphy, Helen. "Colombia Asks Cuba to Capture ELN Leaders after Attack on Police..." Reuters. 19 January 2019. Web. 28 June 2019. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-colombia-blast/colombia-asks-cuba-to-capture-eln-leaders-after-attack-on-police-academy-idUSKCN1PC1CO; Loaiza, Lara. "US Pressure on Cuba to Extradite ELN Leaders Unlikely to Succeed." InSight Crime. InSight Crime, May 18, 2020. https://insightcrime.org/news/brief/usa-colombia-cuba-eln/.

[31] "National Liberation Army (ELN)." InSightCrime.Org. InSight Crime, May 13, 2024. https://insightcrime.org/colombia-organized-crime-news/eln-profile/; "Gaitanistas - Gulf Clan." Insight Crime. December 5, 2024. https://insightcrime.org/colombia-organized-crime-news/urabenos-profile/.

[32] “Tracking Conflict Worldwide,” International Crisis Group, last modified May 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/crisiswatch/database?location_region%5B0%5D=73&location%5B0%5D=76&crisis_state=&created=custom&from_month=1&from_year=2019&to_month=6&to_year=2021&page=1.

[33] Loaiza, Lara. "ELN Unilateral Ceasefire an Important Opportunity for Peace in Colombia." Colombia Peace. Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), March 31, 2020. https://colombiapeace.org/tag/eln/page/3/; “Tracking Conflict Worldwide,” International Crisis Group, last modified May 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/crisiswatch/database?location_region%5B%5D=73&location%5B%5D=76&crisis_state=&created=custom&from_month=1&from_year=2019&to_month=6&to_year=2024; Rustad, Siri Aas, Fredrik Methi, Håvard Mokleiv Nygård and Govinda Clayton. The Strategic Use of Ceasefires in the Coronavirus Crisis. PRIO Paper. Oslo: PRIO, 2020. https://www.prio.org/publications/12346.

[34] Rustad, Siri Aas, Fredrik Methi, Håvard Mokleiv Nygård and Govinda Clayton. The Strategic Use of Ceasefires in the Coronavirus Crisis. PRIO Paper. Oslo: PRIO, 2020. https://www.prio.org/publications/12346.

[35] “Tracking Conflict Worldwide,” International Crisis Group, last modified May 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/crisiswatch/database?location_region%5B%5D=73&location%5B%5D=76&crisis_state=&created=custom&from_month=1&from_year=2019&to_month=6&to_year=2024; "Colombia: Armed Groups’ Brutal Covid-19 Measures." Human Rights Watch (HRW). July 15, 2020. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/07/15/colombia-armed-groups-brutal-covid-19-measures.

[36] Janetsky, Megan. "Colombia's President Has a Plan for 'total Peace.' But Militias Aren't Putting down Their Guns Yet." Associated Press (Buenaventura), September 19, 2023. https://apnews.com/article/colombia-total-peace-gustavo-petro-armed-conflict-d213efd008f73004da8269740b592a70.

[37] McColl, Richard. "Can Colombia's President Achieve 'Total Peace'?" Foreign Press, November 8, 2022. https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/11/08/colombia-total-peace-gustavo-petro-....

[38] Reuters. "Colombia Suspends ELN Rebel Arrest Warrants, Extradition Orders to Restart Peace Talks." Reuters (Bogota), August 20, 2022. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/colombia-suspends-eln-rebel-arrest-warrants-extradition-orders-restart-peace-2022-08-20/; "Colombian Government, Left-wing ELN Rebels Launch New Peace Talks." Al Jazeera. November 22, 2022. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/22/colombian-government-and-rebel-group-eln-resume-peace-talks.

[39] U.S. Department of State. 2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Colombia. Washington, D.C.:

Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 2023. https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/colombia/#:~:text=In%20August%2C%20after%20the%20presidential,released%2038%20hostages%20from%20captivity.

[40] "Tracking Conflict Worldwide: Colombia." International Crisis Watch (ICG). July 15, 2020. https://www.crisisgroup.org/crisiswatch/database?location%5B%5D=76&crisi....

[41] Acosta, Luis J. "Colombia, ELN Rebels Start Six-month Ceasefire." Reuters, August 3, 2022. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/colombia-eln-rebels-start-six-mon..."Colombia and ELN Rebels Extend Ceasefire by Six Months, Agree to Set up Fund." Reuters. February 6, 2024. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/colombia-eln-rebels-extend-ceasefire-by-six-months-2024-02-06/.

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[354] "ELN-Urabeños Clashes Leave Thousands Trapped in Bojayá, Colombia." InSight Crime. 10 May 2019. Web. 30 July 2019. https://www.insightcrime.org/news/brief/eln-urabenos-dispute-intensifies-over-control-of-bojaya-colombia/.

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[358] National Liberation Army (ELN).” InSight Crime. N.p. 12 Jan. 2026. Web. 22 Feb. 2026. https://insightcrime.org/colombia-organized-crime-news/eln-profile/

[359] "EPL." InSight Crime. July 15, 2022. https://insightcrime.org/colombia-organized-crime-news/epl/; Gurney, Kyra. "EPL Guerrillas' Call for Peace Talks Poses Dilemma for Colombia." InSight Crime. July 28, 2014. https://insightcrime.org/news/brief/epl-guerrillas-call-peace-talks-poses-dilemma-colombia-govt/.

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[363] "ELN, Ex-FARC Mafia Drive Rising Cocaine Production in Zulia, Venezuela." InSight Crime. Venezuela Investigative Unit, February 15, 2024. https://insightcrime.org/news/eln-ex-farc-mafia-drive-rising-cocaine-production-zulia-venezuela/; "ELN in Venezuela." InSight Crime. January 28, 2020. https://insightcrime.org/venezuela-organized-crime-news/eln-in-venezuela/; "National Liberation Army (ELN)." InSight Crime. June 18, 2024. https://insightcrime.org/colombia-organized-crime-news/eln-profile/.

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[365] "National Liberation Army (Ejército De Liberación Nacional – ELN) in Venezuela." Insight Crime, August 8, 2024. https://insightcrime.org/venezuela-organized-crime-news/eln-in-venezuela/.

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[374] Larratt-Smith, Charles, and Andrés Aponte. "A Major Roadblock in Future U.S.-Venezuela Talks: The ELN." Americas Quarterly (New York), April 28, 2022. https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/a-major-roadblock-in-future-u-s-venezuela-talks-the-eln/; "Pablito's Plan: Rise of the ELN in Venezuela." InSight Crime. Venezuela Investigative Unit, October 3, 2022. https://insightcrime.org/investigations/pablitos-plan-rise-eln-venezuela/.

[375] "A Seat at the Table: What New Governors in Venezuela Mean for Organized Crime." InSight Crime. Venezuela Investigative Unit, December 20, 2021. https://insightcrime.org/news/new-governors-new-capos-organized-crime-venezuela-after-elections/; "Rebels and Paramilitaries: Colombia's Guerrillas in Venezuela." InSight Crime. Venezuela Investigative Unit, October 3, 2022. https://insightcrime.org/investigations/rebels-paramilitaries-colombia-guerrillas-venezuela/; "Venezuela's Armed Non-State Actors Bolster Maduro in Election Lead-Up." InSight Crime. Venezuela Investigative Unit, August 31, 2023. https://insightcrime.org/news/venezuelas-armed-non-state-actors-bolster-maduro-in-election-lead-up/.

[376] "Venezuela, Colombia, and the ELN at the Crossroads of Peace." InSight Crime. Venezuela Investigative Unit, October 3, 2022. https://insightcrime.org/investigations/venezuela-colombia-eln-crossroads-of-peace/; Larratt-Smith, Charles, and Andrés Aponte. "A Major Roadblock in Future U.S.-Venezuela Talks: The ELN." Americas Quarterly (New York), April 28, 2022. https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/a-major-roadblock-in-future-u-s-venezuela-talks-the-eln/.

[377] "National Liberation Army (Ejército De Liberación Nacional – ELN) in Venezuela." Insight Crime, August 8, 2024. https://insightcrime.org/venezuela-organized-crime-news/eln-in-venezuela/.

[378] “National Liberation Army (Ejército De Liberación Nacional – ELN) in Venezuela." Insight Crime, August 8, 2024. https://insightcrime.org/venezuela-organized-crime-news/eln-in-venezuela/; "Country Reports on Terrorism 2022: Venezuela." U.S. Department of State. Bureau of Counterterrorism, November 30, 2023. https://www.state.gov/reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2022/venezuela/.

[379] “National Liberation Army (Ejército De Liberación Nacional – ELN) in Venezuela." Insight Crime, August 8, 2024. https://insightcrime.org/venezuela-organized-crime-news/eln-in-venezuela/; "Venezuela: A Democratic Crisis." U.S. Department of State. Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Accessed November 19, 2024. https://2017-2021.state.gov/a-democratic-crisis-in-venezuela/.

[380] "After Venezuela Elections, Criminal Groups Work For or Against the Regime." Insight Crime. Venezuela Investigative Unit, August 21, 2024. https://insightcrime.org/news/after-venezuela-elections-criminal-groups-... "Venezuela: A Democratic Crisis." U.S. Department of State. Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Accessed November 19, 2024. https://2017-2021.state.gov/a-democratic-crisis-in-venezuela/.

[381] U.S. Secretary of State, “Assessing the Results of Venezuela’s Presidential Election,” Press Statement, August 1, 2024, https://www.state.gov/assessing-the-results-of-venezuelas-presidential-election/; Loaiza, Lara, and Henry Shuldiner. "Colombia’s Total Peace Hangs by a Thread After Ceasefire With ELN Expires." InSight Crime. August 5, 2024. https://insightcrime.org/news/colombias-total-peace-hangs-by-a-thread-after-ceasefire-with-eln-expires/.

[382] “We can’t take it any more: thousands flee guerrilla clashes on Colombia-Venezuela border.” The Guardian. By Sibylla Brodzinsky. 9 Jan. 2026. Web. 22 Feb. 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/09/clashes-colombia-venezuela-border-after-maduro-capture

“ELN in Venezuela.” InSight Crime. N.p. 13 Jan. 2026. Web. 22 Feb. 2026. https://insightcrime.org/venezuela-organized-crime-news/eln-in-venezuela

[383] “Strike kills guerrillas as US, Colombia agree to target narco bosses.” France 24. AFP. 4 Feb. 2026. Web. 22 Feb. 2026. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260204-strike-kills-guerrillas-as-us-colombia-agree-to-target-narco-bosses

[384] Offstein, Norman. “An Historical Review and Analysis of Colombian Guerrilla Movements: FARC, ELN and EPL.” Desarrollo y Sociedad. N.p. September 2003. Web. 31 July 2015. https://economia.uniandes.edu.co/images/archivos/pdfs/Articulos_Revista_Desarrollo_y_Sociedad/Articulo52_4.pdf

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[386] Gamba Fabul, Laura. "Cuba to Host Peace Talks between Colombia, ELN Rebels." Anadolu Ajansı (Bogota, CO), September 3, 2023. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/cuba-to-host-peace-talks-between-colom....

[387] Murphy, Helen. "Colombia Asks Cuba to Capture ELN Leaders after Attack on Police..." Reuters. 19 January 2019. Web. 28 June 2019. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-colombia-blast/colombia-asks-cuba-to-capture-eln-leaders-after-attack-on-police-academy-idUSKCN1PC1CO ; Loaiza, Lara. "US Pressure on Cuba to Extradite ELN Leaders Unlikely to Succeed." InSight Crime. InSight Crime, May 18, 2020. https://insightcrime.org/news/brief/usa-colombia-cuba-eln/.

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