The FARC no longer controls any significant towns and has been reduced to bands operating in isolated redoubts with fragmented central command, according to intelligence officials. They contend that recruitment is down and that tensions with civilians have risen as the FARC seeks younger recruits, some as young as 13, while forcing urban sympathizers to join rural combat units.
Defectors also say that mid-level commanders live in fear of being turned in by fighters for hefty ransoms offered by the Colombian government. In one notorious case this year, a guerrilla killed his superior in return for a government payout, providing authorities with the slain leader's bloody hand as proof of his treachery.
"You may have a lot of fighters at your side, but you never know what they are really thinking," ex-guerrilla leader Avila told journalists after she turned herself in.
The FARC, she said, was "crumbling."
The group's cash-flow woes seem to be a paradox considering its revenue from Colombia's booming cocaine trade, which the FARC long ago embraced, along with kidnapping, as means to finance its war. But a crackdown on exchange houses used by the group to launder money has sapped available cash, according to a U.S. intelligence source.
In some cases, the FARC has been reduced to using chits instead of cash to pay cultivators of the coca leaf, from which cocaine is made, a Colombian intelligence officer said.
Officials say low-ranking fighters are bearing the brunt of the cash shortage. Defectors and ex-hostages have described a lack of basics such as food, boots, uniforms and other items in the far-flung encampments.
"Mid-level commanders who control the money are giving up and fleeing with the cash," said Gen. Freddy Padilla, the Colombian armed forces' chief of staff.
This week's daring snatching of the hostages away from their captors has led some observers to herald the imminent demise of the rebel group.
"The FARC are a painful inheritance of the Cold War," wrote Patricio Navia, a Chilean political analyst. "We must celebrate that their end now appears near reality."
Others are more cautious. "The FARC continues to be an organization that represents a significant threat, with a significant capacity to do damage," said Alejo Vargas, a political analyst. "It maintains the essential guerrilla structure, which cannot be minimized."
