Leftist Venezuelen President Hugo Chávez ordered 10 battalions to the Colombian border Sunday in response to a Colombian government military raid that killed the No. 2 leader of the rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC).

Calling Saturday's raid, which occurred near the Colombia-Ecuador border, a “cowardly murder,” Chávez denounced Colombian leader Alvaro Uribe, a close ally of the United States, as a “criminal and gangster.”

The battalions Chavez ordered mobilized include tank and attack aircraft.

“We don't want a war, but we are not going to permit imperialism and the Colombian oligarchy to divide us,” Chávez said in his weekly TV broadcast Sunday. Chávez also ordered the Venezuelen embassy in Bogota closed and all embassy personnel withdrawn, according to the Associated Press.

Ecuador President Rafael Correa, who is accusing Colombia of violating his country's airspace, also has recalled his ambassador from Bogota.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, a Chávez ally, also condemned the Colombian government for the killing of Raúl Reyes, the second in command of the left-wing FARC, saying it could hinder attempts toward peace in the embattled South American nation, the newswires Reuters and Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Colombia's military on Saturday said it had killed Reyes, one of seven members of the FARC secretariat, in an operation in Ecuador that included air strikes and fighting with rebels across the border. Another 16 FARC soldiers were killed in the battle too.

Ortega said Reyes was “the man assigned by (FARC) to work for peace,” according to AFP.

By taking Reyes out, military troops “are killing the possibility of a peace process in an act of total provocation, because the doors opened a few days ago,” Ortega said in a speech. The Nicaraguan leader was referring to the FARC's liberation of four hostages last week.

Analysts consider Reyes' death a severe blow to the FARC, which has engaged in a four-decade-old conflict with the Colombian government.

Ortega's statement came after a remark in December in which the Nicaraguan president incensed Uribe by calling FARC chief Manuel Marulanda a “dear brother.”

Meanwhile, one of the six Colombians detained last month in Panama admitted the group belongs to the FARC, according to a separate report yesterday by newswire ACAN-EFE.

-Tico Times