Lima - The extreme-left Peruvian armed group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) was preparing attacks during this week's meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, police said Tuesday. Documents confiscated by authorities at the camp of Shining Path leader "Artemio" - the alias of a man believed to be Filomeno Cerron - described the summit as a good time to carry out attacks based on the stir they would cause and the media attention that they would generate.
It remained unclear whether the confiscation of the material put an end to the plans or whether attacks were still feared when the leaders of APEC economies, including US President George W Bush and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, meet from Friday to Sunday in Lima.
The attacks were set to be carried out against police targets in the jungle area of Huallaga, since the Maoist Shining Path currently lacks the logistic capacity to attack the summit itself.
On Sunday, alleged members of Shining Path killed three police officers and injured four others in southern Peru. Last month, 15 police and military officers were killed along with two civilians by rebels in the same region.
A total of 90,000 police officers were to handle security across Peru during the summit, which is to take place in the Army headquarters in Lima.
Shining Path violence brought Peru to near-destruction in the 1980s, when the rebel group exercised terror in its self-declared quest to set up a communist regime. It killed an estimated 70,000 people over two decades. However, it was virtually dismantled following the arrest in 1992 of its leader Abimael Guzman.
