War / Americas
Colombia Insurgency
De la Espriella takes office August 7, collapsing all Petro peace tracks as U.S. hemispheric primacy doctrine reshapes Colombia's security.
Ecuador
Ecuador is at war with its own cartels.
In January 2024, President Daniel Noboa declared an "internal armed conflict" and designated more than 20 gangs as terrorist organizations, deploying the military nationwide after gunmen seized a live television broadcast in Guayaquil. The fight traces to 2021, when prison massacres killed over 300 inmates and exposed how thoroughly groups like Los Choneros, Lobos, and Los Tiguerones had captured the state's institutions. No foreign government backs either side. The gangs are sustained by Colombian and Mexican cartel supply chains, FARC-EMC dissidents to the north and Sinaloa and CJNG networks moving cocaine through Pacific ports.
A country once considered Latin America's safe corner has become one of its deadliest.
Ecuador's gang war has entered a phase of entrenched fragmentation: military pressure under Noboa has decapitated major organizations without dismantling criminal capacity, producing more than 48 active armed groups by early 2026 and spreading violence from Guayaquil into Quito and interior cantons.
It matters because the war continues to tie down the main belligerents, pull in outside backers, and shape the security balance across Americas.
Weekly net escalation pressure, last 90 days
Southern Command's Autonomous Warfare Command is the most consequential structural development in the conflict's external architecture: it converts a surge posture into a durable infrastructure investment.
Operation Southern Spear's targeting criteria, which do not require evidence of narcotics on board per Senate testimony.
De la Espriella's Colombian election reshapes the northern border dynamic on two axes: a military push against FARC-EMC and the Gulf Clan will disrupt Ecuadorian gang supply chains in the short term.
GANGS
Colombian cartel supply chains (FARC-EMC, Gulf Clan), Mexican cartel connections (CJNG, Sinaloa).
US
counter-narcotics cooperation. No direct state sponsor.
War / Americas
De la Espriella takes office August 7, collapsing all Petro peace tracks as U.S. hemispheric primacy doctrine reshapes Colombia's security.
War / Americas
U.S. autonomous warfare posture locks in permanent hemispheric reach as Mexico's institutional capacity hits a three-decade low.
Colombian FARC-EMC supply channels sustain cross-border trafficking and provide weapons and logistics to Ecuadorian armed groups along the northern border.
Gulf Clan cross-border logistics support gang financing and supply chains in Ecuador's northern border zones and have drawn a formal Colombian request for U.S. Sinaloa Cartel networks coordinate Ecuadorian gang access to Pacific cocaine export flows and embed in port transit infrastructure as a durable upstream broker.
CJNG franchise nodes operate within Ecuadorian port and overland transit networks to manage northbound drug shipments.
Illegal gold mining networks function as a structurally independent criminal financing layer for armed groups across Ecuador's Amazon.