The rescue was planned and executed by the Colombians, and benefited from equipment, intelligence and years of training from the United States government. About 100 full time employees at the U.S. Embassy here have been working on freeing the hostages from the United States -- Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell -- since February 2003. They were taken captive after their drug surveillance plane crash-landed in the jungle. A fourth colleague was killed.
U.S. help included surveillance cameras that were placed along rivers the rebels were known to traverse. The U.S. also provided satellite imagery and the technology that helped the Colombians locate the rebels. The decision to go ahead with the mission went all the way to President Bush, who in recent days gave his approval, a U.S. government source said
"We have been training, equipping and embedding people in preparation for a rescue operation for 5 1/2 years," U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield said in an interview Thursday.
At the embassy, euphoria prevailed and the lobby that had long featured photos of the three hostages now had celebratory champagne bottles and beer cans.
According to recent rebel deserters, the FARC command has become increasingly isolated as its radio, cellphone and satellite phone communications have been compromised by listening equipment provided by the U.S., Padilla said.
"Because of the rebels' command and control problems, they have had to resort to medieval communication methods such as human couriers," he said.
Having undercover agents in place in the FARC command made it possible to use pen drives and floppy disks to send bogus messages to the leadership. Those fake messages ultimately fooled Cesar into putting the hostages aboard the helicopter Wednesday.
Cesar also was duped into aggregating three separate groups of hostages and then transporting them to La Paz, a six-week trip 110 miles northeast of where they were being held near the Apaporis River in southeastern Guaviare state.
The rebels apparently thought that they and the hostages were being taken to a meeting with the new FARC commander, who took over from founder Pedro Antonio Marin, alias Manuel Marulanda, who died in March.
A phony organization called the International Humanitarian Group was in charge of the helicopter, which bore its logo. Colombian and U.S. intelligence officials even created a fake website in case rebel commanders checked.
