Reuters AlertNet Lite - Peru to deploy extra police to quell drug violence

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Peru to deploy extra police to quell drug violence

02 Nov 2007 19:12:13 GMT
Source: Reuters

LIMA, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Peru will send 100 police to quell drug violence in a coca-growing region and track down suspected guerrillas who killed a police chief in a grenade attack, the interior minister said on Friday.

In the most audacious assault on security forces in months, nearly 30 alleged insurgents who traffic cocaine attacked the police station with machine guns and grenades early on Thursday in Ocobamba, a town 560 miles (900 km) southeast of Lima.

Interior Minister Luis Alva said the raid appeared to be the work of holdouts from the Shining Path guerrilla group, who now work for drug gangs in the South American country, the world's No. 2 cocaine producer after Colombia.

"Narcoterrorists always try to show force like this," Alva said. "It's an area where there are terrorists and drugs traffickers, and this happened because, in the last few days, we've been working in the area and seizing drugs."

Several days before the attack, the government said it feared powerful cartels from Mexico, including the violent Sinaloa gang, were starting to operate in Peru.

The body of the slain police chief arrived on Friday at police headquarters in Lima, where dozens of officers saluted his casket and a brass band played a solemn march. Three other officers were wounded in the attack.

Last month, police killed seven suspected guerrillas in a different region and in August they captured 20 others.

Members of the Shining Path, which led a rebellion that killed thousands of civilians until its leadership collapsed in the early 1990s, have become involved in drug-trafficking. They have killed at least 13 anti-drug workers since President Alan Garcia took office in July 2006.

The Maoist group nearly disappeared after its leader, Abimael Guzman, who once taught philosophy to university students, was arrested in 1992 and later jailed.

Officials say the Shining Path have small but active groups in Peru's two main coca growing areas -- in the Huallaga Valley in the north and in south-central Peru.

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Last updated:Fri Nov 2 19:12:23 2007