Bogota, Colombia, Mar 2: Troops killed a senior commander of Colombia's largest rebel army in an air-and-ground raid Saturday, as the U.S.-backed military dealt a stunning setback to the nation's leftist insurgency.

Raul Reyes was the public face of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia as its spokesman and considered a possible successor to the group's No. 1 spot. He died in combat across the border in neighboring Ecuador, said Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos.

``This is the strongest blow dealt to the terrorist group to date,'' Santos told a news conference.

Santos said the military tracked Reyes' location through information from an informer. The air force then bombed a camp where Reyes was thought to be just after midnight Saturday. As the ground troops moved in, they came under attack from another camp located just over the border in Ecuador. When the military overran the camp, they found Reyes' body, he said.

Colombian neighbors Ecuador and Venezuela protested the incursion into foreign territory.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said Colombian President Alvaro Uribe had informed him of the raid, but later announced that he was misled after Ecuadorean officials inspected a bombed rebel camp.

``The (Colombian) president either was poorly informed or brazenly lied to the president of Ecuador,'' said Correa, who called home the ambassador to Colombia for consultation and promised a diplomatic note of protest.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is actively negotiating for the release of FARC-held hostages, warned that any such an incursion into Venezuela would lead to war.

``Don't think about doing that of here because it would very serious, it would be cause for war,'' Chavez said at a televised meeting with his Cabinet.

A total of 17 rebels and one soldier died in the operation, which involved Colombia's army, police and air force, the defense minister said. Among the rebel dead was another senior FARC member Guillermo Enrique Torres, a revolutionary songwriter known as ``Julian Conrado.''

The death of Reyes, whose real name was Luis Edgar Devia Silva, is the latest in a series of rebel setbacks at the hands of Uribe's government, which has vowed to use U.S. aid to defeat the FARC.