Colombia arrests 217 suspected members of top drug cartel
President Gustavo Petro accuses group of "systematically murdering" security forces
Colombian authorities said Monday they had captured over 200 members of the country's biggest drug cartel, which is accused of murdering two dozen security force members in the past month.
The Gulf Clan was born out of the right-wing paramilitary groups that fought leftist guerrillas in the 1990s before turning their attention to the cocaine trade.
President Gustavo Petro has accused the group, with which he suspended peace talks in early 2023, of devising a strategy to "systematically murder" members of the security forces.
At a press conference on Monday, Armed Forces chief Franciso Cubides said the security forces had responded by arresting 217 members of the clan since April 15.
He added that 15 other suspected drug traffickers had been shot dead in raids that had netted 6.8 metric tons of drugs, 123 firearms and over 15,000 munitions.
Sixteen police officers and five soldiers have been killed in attacks blamed on what Petro has called the Gulf Clan's "pistol plan."
Cubides said the attacks were part of a "desperate response" by armed groups to the "overwhelming" setbacks they were suffering at the hands of the police and military in the north and west of the country.
The Gulf Clan, which engages in illegal gold mining, racketeering and migrant smuggling, is believed to number about 7,500 members, according to government estimates.
The arrests come as Colombia suffers its worst outburst of violence since the leftist FARC guerrilla army, one of the world's oldest rebel movements, signed a peace deal with the government in 2016.
Interior Minister Armando Benedetti admitted last month that Petro's strategy of pursuing "total peace" by engaging dialogue with the country's various armed groups had not borne fruit.
On Petro's watch, several armed groups, particularly the Gulf clan, have grown stronger, Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez admitted recently in an AFP interview.