A day after President Barack Obama announced that he would be removing Cuba from the U.S.'s list of state sponsors of terrorism, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas, who supposedly have ties to Cuba, killed 10 Colombian soldiers and wounded 20 others, according to AFP.
Over the years, Cuba has maintained close ties to FARC, a group the State Department considers to be a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Cuba has supported and often provided FARC members a "safe haven in Cuba and safe passage through Cuba," wrote the State Department in 2012. It's partially what landed Cuba on the U.S. terror sponsor list in the first place.
Since then, Cuba has hosted a number of peace talks between FARC and the Colombian government, and has, at least publicly, renounced support for foreign militants.
Obama said Tuesday that the government of Cuba "has not provided any support for international terrorism" over the past six months, claiming that Cuba "has provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future." Therefore, as part of the normalization process between the two countries, Obama will officially removed from the terror list in about 45 days, reported The Associated Press.
"Circumstances have changed since 1982, when Cuba was originally designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism because of its efforts to promote armed revolution by forces in Latin America," Secretary of State John Kerry said in a press statement Tuesday. "Our hemisphere and the world look very different today than they did 33 years ago. Our determination...is that the time has come to rescind Cuba's designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism."
