** Venezuelan forces are guarding a hospital in San Cristobal after a mysterious and suspected high level terrorist sought refuge there on Sunday.
After FARC rebel Joaquim Gomez took over the #2 position for dead rebel Raul Reyes he suffered a shot to the face.
Venezuelan troops are reportedly guarding his room in San Cristobal.
Photo from Venezuelan Globovision television.
FARC rebels announced that rebel Joaquim Gomez would replace the position left open after Raul Reyes was killed by the Columbian military. His party was short lived. Colombian forced shot him in the face hours after his promotion. Thankfully, Joaquim was able to cross the border into Venezuela and find refuge at a hospital there.
The Real Cuba and Bloomberg reported:
A Colombian rebel leader is hospitalized in Venezuela after being shot in the face, Venezuela’s Globovision network reported on its Web site, citing people it didn’t identify.
The guerrilla, known by his alias, Joaquin Gomez, checked into the hospital over the weekend in the border town of Rubio, Globovision reported. Venezuela’s National Guard is guarding his room at the hospital, according to the television network.
Gomez was shot during combat in Colombia, the television network said, citing Agence France-Presse.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia appointed Gomez to its seven-member central governing body, or secretariat, following the death of Raul Reyes on March 1 during an attack in Ecuador by Colombia’s military.
Also yesterday there were news reports that the FARC rebels were reaching out to Democrats and Bill Clinton to mediate talks.
Hat Tip Suzie
UPDATE: There are questions today about the actual identity of the wounded terrorist.
The Miami Herald has more on the mystery rebel at the Venezuelan hospital:
The Venezuelan military is investigating the identity of a man who showed up Sunday at a medical clinic near the Colombian border with fake names, a phony ID and a bullet wound to the jaw. National Guard troops surrounded the clinic because they believed the man was a leftist Colombian rebel or right-wing paramilitary fighter, the Venezuelan military said.
But when the media got wind of the heavy military presence at the La Colonia clinic in the city of Rubio, rumors spread that the injured man was top FARC leader Joaquín Gómez.
Gómez, who has a $2.5 million U.S. bounty on his head, replaced Raúl Reyes last week on the seven-member FARC secretariat after Reyes died in a Colombian attack on a FARC camp in Ecuador.
However, Venezuelan television footage showed that the patient is much darker-skinned than Gómez.
