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Peru guerrillas attack for second time in week
15 Oct 2008 01:08:54 GMT
Source: Reuters
LIMA, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Suspected members of the Shining Path guerrilla group attacked a Peruvian army unit on Tuesday, killing two soldiers and wounding five in the second bloody clash in less than a week, the military said.

A group of soldiers was patrolling in the Vizcatan region in the coca-growing valleys of Apurimac and Ene when the troops were attacked by the rebels.

Last Thursday, 15 people were killed when Shining Path guerrillas ambushed a military convoy. It was the deadliest battle with suspected rebels since President Alan Garcia took office in July 2006.

Garcia, whose approval rating has fallen to 19 percent, has been sending soldiers to the country's coca-rich regions since August in an effort to destroy what is left of the Shining Path, which security officials say includes about 300 guerrillas.

Shining Path, which led a deadly insurrection for years that started in 1980, largely collapsed in the early 1990s after its leadership was captured.

Holdout members of the group remain active and the government says they have mostly abandoned their Maoist ideology in favor of running drugs.

Shining Path has killed about three dozen police, soldiers and anti-narcotics workers since Garcia began his term. Peru is the world's second largest producer of coca, the raw ingredient in cocaine, after Colombia. (Reporting by Diego Ore; Writing by Terry Wade; Editing by Peter Cooney)


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