Reuters AlertNet Lite - Guerrillas kill four police in Peruvian drug area

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Guerrillas kill four police in Peruvian drug area

15 Nov 2007 00:23:55 GMT
Source: Reuters

LIMA, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Four police officers were killed and two wounded in a shootout with suspected guerrillas in a coca-growing region in Peru in the second such clash this month, authorities said on Wednesday.

Police were caught off guard by 30 suspected members of the Shining Path guerrilla group armed with automatic rifles and explosives in Tayacaja, about 275 miles (445 km) southeast of the capital Lima, a local official said.

"Police were ambushed ... we had four killed and two wounded," Federico Salas, president of the Huancavelica region, said of the 90-minute battle.

Remnants of the Shining Path, a Maoist group that led a rebellion until its leadership collapsed in the early 1990s, have abandoned their ideological struggle in recent years and gone to work instead for drug traffickers in Peru, the world's No. 2 cocaine producer after Colombia.

They have killed up to 14 anti-narcotics workers since President Alan Garcia took office in July 2006, apparently to protest government drug raids. The earlier clash was on Nov. 1.

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

"It is increasingly difficult to separate terrorism from drug trafficking," Peruvian Defense Minister Allan Wagner told local television. (Reporting by Marco Aquino and Maria Luisa Palomino; writing by Terry Wade; editing by Hilary Burke and Eric Walsh)

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Last updated:Thu Nov 15 00:23:05 2007