Peru arrests 3 car bomb suspects

June 12, 2002

LIMA, Peru (AP) - Police have arrested three leftist rebels for a car bombing that killed 10 people outside the U.S. Embassy in March, three days before a visit by President Bush, Peru's president said Wednesday.

President Alejandro Toledo said the suspects, two of whom were women, were "directly" involved in the bombing.

"They're being interrogated in prison right now, but there is no doubt that they all participated in this criminal attack," Toledo said.

The car bomb exploded March 20 in an outdoor shopping plaza across from the fortress-like U.S. embassy in Lima, killing 10 Peruvians and injuring 30 others in the worst terrorist attack here in five years.

The bombing heightened already simmering fears that the largely defeated Shining Path was plotting a comeback.

Bush went ahead with his visit to Peru despite the bombing.

The suspects were arrested May 25 in the coastal city of Chiclayo, 410 miles northwest of the capital Lima, after witnesses identified the man and one of the women as participants in the bombing, said Interior Minister Fernando Rospigliosi.

The women were longtime members of the Shining Path insurgency, Rospigliosi said.

He warned that other members of the "small" group of rebels who plotted the attack were still at large.

The arrests "do not rule out in any way the possibility that the remnants of this fanatical terrorist group could eventually carry out other attacks. But we've captured part of them, and this brings us much closer to the entire gang," Rospigliosi said.

He did not say how many more suspects there were.

In 1980, the Shining Path launched a campaign of car bombings, sabotage and assassinations to overthrow the government and install a communist state.

The fighting has taken 30,000 lives, although the violence dropped off significantly following the arrest of Shining Path founder Abimael Guzman in 1992 and other key leaders.

Authorities have said that small bands of the guerrillas have begun regrouping in isolated river valleys in the Amazon jungle region, where they have become entwined with drug traffickers.

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