Hours after the terrorist attack that shook northern Cali, leaving at least six people dead and 42 more injured, President Gustavo Petro arrived in the city to lead a security council meeting with departmental and local authorities. The meeting's objective is to assess the situation and define urgent measures to address the escalating violence in Valle del Cauca and Antioquia. The president arrived accompanied by Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez and the military leadership.
From there, the president released a photograph of one of the alleged perpetrators of the attack—who was detained by the community after the attack—and accused him of belonging to the Central General Staff.
"This is one of the alleged perpetrators of the truck bomb attack in Cali, captured by the community at the scene. His alias is Sebastián and he belongs to the EMC structures, led by alias Marlon, subordinate to the 'Drug Trafficking Board,'" he said.
This is one of the alleged perpetrators of the truck bomb attack in Cali, captured by the community at the scene. He is alias Sebastián and belongs to the EMC structures, led by alias Marlon, subordinate to the Drug Trafficking Board.
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) August 22, 2025
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Before traveling to Cali, President Petro had already spoken out about the attack and blamed the dissidents of"Iván Mordisco." "After the defeat of the Carlos Patiño column with the loss of a large part of the Micay Canyon, we have a terrorist reaction in Cali with civilian deaths," the Colombian president said in X.
The president then dedicated the rest of his message on X to defending his thesis on the existence of a 'Drug Trafficking Board'."The Government considers here and asks the world to consider the Drug Trafficking Board as a terrorist organization, and its armed gangs in Cauca, Guaviare, Antioquia and the Colombian Caribbean", he wrote.
Later, the president returned to the topic during a land distribution event in Valledupar."What happened in Cali shows us the shift by 'Iván Mordisco's' dissidents toward purely terrorist actions," Petro stated, noting that a confrontation between armed groups is not the same as an attack directly targeting the civilian population.
"It's a war crime, a crime against humanity under the International Criminal Court's jurisdiction, and it's terrorism under the most basic concept of terror," the president added. He then announced that the dissident groups of"Iván Mordisco," the "Segunda Marquetalia," and the "Gulf Clan" will be considered terrorist organizations,"prosecutable anywhere in the world."
The balance of the attacks
Six civilians have been killed and 64 injured so far in the attack perpetrated this Thursday by the dissidents of 'Iván Mordisco' in Cali, making it the worst terrorist attack against a capital city since 2019, when the ELN killed 23 police cadets at the General Santander School in Bogotá.
Hours earlier, in Amalfi (Antioquia), the dissidents of alias Calarcá, who continue in"total peace," shot down an anti-drug helicopter with a drone loaded with explosives: 12 police officers were killed in what is, to date, the worst blow against the Public Force during the Petro administration.
