"The Shining Path has been defeated strategically in military terms, but that does not rule out the possibility that it could progressively regain strength and increase its number of members," he said.

The Shining Path launched its insurgency in 1980. It counted 10,000 fighters at its peak and controlled large swaths of countryside, bloodying Peru as it spread its form of communist revolution.

Guzman, 67, a former university professor, instilled an almost religious zeal in his followers and convinced them that the Shining Path would one day rule Peru.

Some 30,000 noncombatants, rebels, police agents and soldiers have died in the fighting, although the violence dropped off significantly after Guzman's capture.

He is now serving a life sentence in a maximum-security prison on a naval base in Lima's port of Callao.

Authorities and experts estimate that no more than 500 armed Shining Path combatants operate today in isolated jungle valleys where they have become entwined with cocaine traffickers.