On Monday, the President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, canceled peace talks with the country's main rebel group because he says they are holding an army general and two other people captive.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia confirmed Tuesday that they are holding a senior army commander and two other victims, as the country's president predicted, EFE reports. The abductees were captured over the weekend in the northwestern province of Choco.

Ivan Rios Bloc of FARC released a statement after the FARC delegates said they couldn't confirm if Alzate, who has a doctorate in military science, was captured by rebels. Gen. Ruben Dario Alzate, Cpl. Jorge Rodriguez and attorney Gloria Urrego were kidnapped by guerrillas "carrying out security duties," Rios Bloc said.

"Once fully identified, despite wearing civilian clothes, the three were captured by our units, because they were enemy military personnel who were moving, in exercise of their functions, in an area of war operations," the statement said.

The guerrillas said that Alzate faces an accounting with people's justices as commander of Task Force Titan, which has been in the vanguard of government offensives against the FARC. FARC's Rios Bloc statement said they vow to respect the life and physical and moral integrity of their prisoners while the final decision on what happens to the prisoners is up to the FARC high command.

Peace talks between the government and rebel group have been ongoing in Havana since November 2012 with the goal of ending 50 years of guerrilla warfare, The New York Times reports.

The FARC high command does not completely believe that a soldier with Alzate's training and decades of experience would have unwittingly ventured without escort into a rebel-dominated region, according to EFE.

Colombia's president demanded that the group immediately free the general and his task force led by the general. Santos dispatched top commanders to the region and suggested that a rescue operation was possible.

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