The terrorist group FARC has taken yet again another major hit today:

Ivan Rios, a top leader of FARC, was killed Friday by his own chief of security in what was the second major blow to the country’s biggest left-wing rebel group in less than a week, Colombia’s government confirmed.

The news threatened to destabilize already strained relations between Colombia and Venezuela following the death of another FARC leader, Raul Reyes, who was killed in a firefight with Colombian government forces last weekend.

Rios’ security chief gave Colombian troops the leader’s severed hand as proof, the defense minister said Friday.

Ivan Rios was the second top rebel killed in a week, a major setback for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the country’s largest rebel force. FARC spokesman Raul Reyes was killed Saturday in a cross-border raid in Ecuador that set off an international diplomatic crisis.

“The FARC has suffered a new, major blow,” Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said at a news conference. [Fox News]

This news is breaking while Latin American leaders are meeting in the Dominican Republic and Columbian President Uribe is trading jabs with FARC supporters and financiers Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa:

Uribe said his military was forced to act because Colombia’s neighbors have provided refuge to FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which finances its anti-government insurgency through kidnapping and drug trafficking. And he said that the rebels have responded in kind, doing favors for Chavez and helping Correa get elected.

“Your insolence is doing more damage to the Ecuadorean people than your murderous bombs,” Correa responded, bellowing into his microphone. “Stop trying to justify the unjustifiable!”

Correa later drew loud applause when he emphasized that Colombia violated his nation’s sovereignty by sending commandos across the border to attack a rebel camp in Ecuador. He portrayed Ecuador as a victim of Colombia’s conflict, and proposed an international peacekeeping force to guard their border.

Uribe’s speech was met with silence.

Uribe, meanwhile, produced letters between Correa and FARC he claims prove new relations between Ecuador and terrorists, and said Ecuador has not and will not provide information on the FARC terrorists.

Correa called Uribe a liar and left the meeting, with an aide saying it was because he had to use the restroom.

Read the whole thing here, but it obviously quite heated and Uribe has Chavez and Correa on the defensive with the evidence he has linking the two to terrorism. It will be interesting to see if President Uribe will try to have Ecuador and Venezuela placed on the United States’ list of states that sponsor terrorism. This is only getting more and more interesting, but Uribe definitely has the upper hand.