Colombian armed forces struck two different FARC-dissident factions from the air between 27 and 31 August 2026, killing at least 31 fighters. In the same period, the government extradited the leader of another armed group, ended formal talks with three organisations, and designated every non-state armed group in the country a terrorist organisation.

The conflict monitoring group ACLED reports that August was the deadliest month for clashes between security forces and armed groups since its Colombia records began in 2018, with at least 84 people killed since President De la Espriella took office on 7 August.

A doctrine, not a series of operations

Taken separately, each of those measures is a policy choice a government might make. Taken together in four weeks, they describe a decision to stop treating Colombia’s armed groups as parties to a negotiation and start treating them as targets.

This is a reversal of the approach of the previous administration, which pursued simultaneous talks with multiple groups under the banner of total peace. That policy was widely criticised for producing ceasefires that armed groups used to consolidate territory and recruit, and its collapse is the political ground the new approach stands on.

What ending talks does

Formal negotiations have effects beyond whether they conclude. They create channels through which humanitarian access can be requested, hostages released and local truces arranged, and they give commanders a reason to restrain units that would otherwise act. Ending them removes those channels at the same time as it removes the constraint.

The argument on the other side is that talks with a group that is expanding its coca production and its territorial control amount to a subsidy — that a negotiation which never ends functions as protection. Both positions have evidence behind them in Colombia’s history, which includes both a successful peace agreement in 2016 and several processes that gave armed groups years of breathing space.

The terrorist designation applied to every non-state armed group has a further consequence: it narrows the legal room for any future government to reopen talks, since negotiating with a designated organisation carries criminal exposure for the officials who do it.

The figure to keep an eye on

ACLED’s count is of clashes between security forces and armed groups. It is not a count of civilians killed, and in Colombia the two have historically diverged: intensified military operations in coca-growing regions have tended to be followed by killings of community leaders, forced displacement and confinement of rural populations by the groups being pursued.

If that pattern repeats, it will appear first in reports from Colombia’s own ombudsman’s office and from local human rights organisations, several months before it appears in international coverage.

Sources

• ACLED data on Colombia clashes, cited in weekly regional defence reporting, 5 September 2026
• Reporting on Colombian air operations against FARC-dissident factions, 27-31 August 2026
• Colombian government announcements on extradition, terrorist designation and the end of talks, August 2026