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Current Affairs

US & Ecuador Carry Out Joint Military Operations Targeting FARC Dissident Camp

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By Samantha Johnson / March 8, 2026

“Socalj” for Borderland Beat

The United States and Ecuador conducted joint military operations against “designated terrorist organizations in Ecuador,” U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) announced on Tuesday.

This is the first time, officially, that the U.S. military has engaged in a land combat operation against South American drug cartels and gangs since the 1980s.

Recently, the U.S. military had only carried out airstrikes targeting smuggling boats in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean killing a total of 152 alleged traffickers.

“In March, we will conduct joint operations with our regional allies, including the United States,” President Noboa wrote on X.

On Monday, Noboa held talks in Quito with US Southern Command chief Francis Donovan and Mark Schafer, head of US Special Operations in Central and South America and the Caribbean.

During the meeting, they discussed plans for information sharing and operational coordination at airports and seaports, Noboa’s office said in a statement.

“At the request of Ecuador, the U.S. Department of War executed a targeted action to advance the shared goal of dismantling narco-terrorist networks,” said U.S. Armed Forces spokesman Sean Parnell in a social media message.

The Ecuadorian Armed Forces, in collaboration with the United States, bombed and destroyed a training camp of Comandos de la Frontera, one of the dissident criminal groups of the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas from Colombia.

Ecuadorian military personnel, acting on intelligence and US support, attacked the CDF Border Command camp that, according to official information, belonged to the leader nicknamed ‘Mono Tole’ and had the capacity to “train up to fifty drug traffickers.”

The US Embassy in Ecuador also reported the arrest of 16 people, including a former assemblyman, allegedly linked to the Albanian mafia and Los Lobos. The network sent drugs to Europe in shipping containers.

In August 2023, several Colombian gunmen assassinated presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. He was outspoken about links between Los Choneros and the Sinaloa Cartel and corruption in Ecuador. 
Ecuador is the world’s largest export point of cocaine traveling both into Central America, Mexico and the United States as well as directly to Europe and other continents. Around 70% of the drugs produced by Colombia and Peru, are shipped through neighboring Ecuador.

Jose Adolfo Macias, the longtime Los Choneros gang leader known as “Fito” was recently arraigned in the United States after being recaptured and extradited from Ecuador. 
Now the Ecuadorian Prosecutor’s Office has charged Wilmer Geovanny Chavarría “Pipo” head of the rival Los Lobos gang, who is currently detained in Spain, as an alleged participant in the planning of the murder. According to the Public Ministry, a group of businessmen linked to corruption schemes that Villavicencio was pursuing and the former Correa minister José Serrano where the conspirators behind the assassination.
Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa called current Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa a criminal after Wilmer Chavarria accused Noboa himself of ordering the assassination of the presidential candidate.

On his X account, Correa wrote: “Remember how Villavicencio ‘s wife accused Daniel Noboa and Diana Salazar (Attorney General) of being behind her husband’s death? Now it all makes sense. Noboa won in 2023 through murder, and in 2025 through fraud. CRIMINAL!”

As part of the “internal armed conflict,” the Ecuadorian government has labeled several criminal organizations as terrorists. The Trump administration also designated Los Choneros and Los Lobos, as FTO terrorist organisations, linked respectively to the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels.

Noboa last year pushed for the reopening of a closed US military base but was voted down in a November referendum against overturning a ban on foreign bases.

In December, the United States announced a temporary deployment of Air Force personnel to the former US base in the port city of Manta.


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