Today, four years of negotiations will culminate today in the signing of a peace agreement between the government of Colombia and the FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, ending 52 years of brutal conflict which left more than a quarter million people dead.
Assuming the agreement is ratified in a public referendum in early October, and most signs indicate that it will pass easily, the FARC will hand over its weapons to UN inspectors and transform itself into a political party. This agreement effectively ends Latin America’s longest running insurgency, one that featured kidnappings and urban terrorism (like the bombing noted below) alongside guerrilla warfare.
- Sept. 25, 2002 — Pakistan: Seven killed in attack on a Christian charity in Karachi.
- Sept. 26, 2004 — Syria: Car bomb kills HAMAS leder Izz al-Din Shaykh Khalil.
- Sept. 27, 1987 — Greece: Revolutionary Popular Struggle (ELA) bombs a US commissary, killing one.
- Sept. 28, 2000 — Philippines: Abu Sayyaf Group leader killed, two others wounded in Philippine military operation to rescue hostages.
- Sept. 29, 2003 — Colombia: FARC motorcycle bomb kills 10, wounds 54, including three police officers.
- Sept. 30, 2011 — Yemen: Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen who joined al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and became a leading promoter of jihad against the West and an attack planner for AQAP, is killed by an American drone strike.
- Oct. 1, 2005 — Indonesia: Jemmah Islamiya blamed for Bali resort bombings that kill 26 and wound more than 100.