This mission was made possible thanks to several months of analysis by military intelligence and information gathered by army and police agents who infiltrated the FARC, as well as during the capture of guerrilla Marcos Parrilla.

At 5:30 p.m. on June 10, President Álvaro Uribe gave the go-ahead to the commander of the military forces, General Freddy Padilla de León, for the deployment of troops and the launch of Operation Chameleon.

[2] Álvaro Uribe Vélez, first elected on May 26, 2002, and re-elected on May 28, 2006,[3] took over the reins of the Colombian presidency after eight years of intense FARC activity, which included several major victories:[4] the attacks on Las Delicias in 1996, El Billar, Miraflores and Mitú in 1998.

[7] In 2010, Álvaro Uribe was constitutionally prohibited from seeking a third term in office, so he endorsed the presidential candidacy of his former defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos,[8][9] who was instrumental in the armed forces' successes during operations Phoenix and Jaque in 2008.

According to the Colombian authorities' press statement, several months before the launch of "Chameleon Operation", army and police agents infiltrated FARC, cautiously retrieving data from the field on a weekly basis.

[12] After several months of analyzing the information in their possession, three of the most experienced military intelligence colonels decided to visit General Óscar Enrique González Peña in the first week of February 2010.

Thus, the planning was based on all the information processed since 2007, with Jhon Frank Pinchao having succeeded in escaping (after having been a FARC hostage for almost nine years),[13] the unilateral releases of the Marxist guerrillas, and the rescue of the 15 people kidnapped during Operation Jaque.

[19] He also informed that the guerrilla group and its hostages moved frequently, staying in one place for a short period of time ranging from 8 to 15 days, data which was verified by army intelligence services.

[21] According to the commander of the military forces, General Freddy Padilla de León, the operation, initially planned for a fortnight, actually lasted only eight days, 36 of which were critical and very high-risk hours.

[24] On June 10, at 5:30 p.m., President Álvaro Uribe gave the commander of the military forces, General Freddy Padilla de León, the go-ahead to deploy the troops and launch Operation Chameleon.

[15] However, Chameleon Operation was extended into the early hours of Monday June 14, as the army was unable to immediately recover Colonel William Donato Gómez, who had become lost in the jungle.

A plane then took them to the CATAM (Comando Aéreo de Transporte Militar) air base in Bogotá, where they were received by former hostages Gloria Polanco, Consuelo González, and Orlando Beltrán.

[36] Following the success of the operation, the army commander, General Oscar González, declared that the Colombian government had rewarded Marcos Parrilla and three other informers with 2.5 billion pesos for helping to free the four hostages.

[11] Another political scientist, Ruben Sanchez, a professor at Bogotá's Del Rosario Private University, even declared that "this operation had been planned for a long time and (that) it was reserved for these days".

[26] The army's success was a reminder that the guerrillas had suffered a number of stinging media setbacks while Santos was Minister of Defense,[19] such as the death of Raúl Reyes during Operation Phoenix on March 1, 2008,[7][40] and the release of Íngrid Betancourt.

[41] According to telephone conversations intercepted by the Colombian army, FARC high command gave the order to kill all guerrillas guarding hostages during Chameleon Operation.

[44] On the other hand, Colonel William Donato, who had spent 15 hours hiding in the jungle, recounted that, during the night following the assault on the FARC camp, he heard helicopters flying overhead, and that when he ran to signal his presence, military aircraft began bombing a nearby area, forcing him to take refuge once again.

[44] A few days after the hostages were freed, General Freddy Padilla de León asserted that not a single soldier of the armed forces had been killed during the operation, and that, to his knowledge, the same was true of the FARC.

[46] Thus, according to him, Corporal Edward Milciades Guzmán Barón, who died of his wounds on June 17 after being shot by a FARC sniper in San José del Guaviare, did not take part in Operation Chameleon.