The 50-year-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), once considered the best-funded insurgency in the world, is at its smallest and most vulnerable state in decades, due in part to a CIA covert action program that has helped Colombian forces kill at least two dozen rebel leaders, according to interviews with more than 30 former and current U.S. and Colombian officials.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has said he was ready to start negotiating peace with the country's second-largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), "as soon as possible". The announcement comes a day after the ELN released a Canadian hostage it had been holding for months, Gernot Wober. Santos hailed the rebels' release and said "the government is ready to start a dialogue with the ELN as soon as possible," in a statement released by his office on Thursday.

After nine months in Havana, Cuba, negotiators are making slow but steady progress toward ending the conflict between Colombia's government and its largest leftist guerrilla group, the 49-year-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The talks are now at the second of five agenda points, and a growing segment of public opinion believes that this peace process—the fourth in the past 30 years—may end in an accord.