PERU: Two Peruvian soldiers and four guerrillas die in rebel attack on army helicopter in northern coca growing region

Record ID: 352206

  • Title: PERU: Two Peruvian soldiers and four guerrillas die in rebel attack on army helicopter in northern coca growing region
  • Date: 3rd September 2009
  • Summary: JAUJA, PERU (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF HELICOPTER SIMILAR TO THE ONE SHOT DOWN BY THE REBELS
  • Embargoed: 18th September 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Peru
  • Country: Peru
  • Topics: War / Fighting,Defence / Military
  • Reuters ID: LVA429Q159LWTMNK4KCSJ9ADDOC5
  • Story Text: Two Peruvian soldiers were killed on Wednesday (September 02) when Shining Path rebels in South America's largest coca-growing region shot down an army helicopter in their second strike this week.
    Rebels have been retaliating since the army launched a raid a week ago to catch a leader of the Shining Path who helps direct cocaine trafficking in the Ene and Apurimac River Valleys, a region known as as VRAE located in Peru's central Andean jungle.
    Defence minister Rafael Rey said the helicopter was trying to rescue three soldiers wounded in a clash that broke out a day earlier.
    Four guerrillas and two soldiers died, and one soldier on the helicopter was injured, bringing the number of wounded and stranded soldiers near the flash point to four.
    "In the moment that [the soldiers] were carrying out a rescue operation for three injured in the VRAE area, one of the helicopters that was flying out to conduct the rescue and being protected by another [helicopter] that was acting as a shield, was hit at long range just as it was about to land, causing the death of two members of the Air Force and injuring a Army major," Rey said in a news conference in the capital Lima.
    "At the moment it was about to land they hit the rotor blade and evidently the helicopter tipped towards its head and that is why the pilot and co-pilot died," he said.
    Rey declined to say when the next rescue attempt would be made.
    The army has failed so far to capture their target, Jorge Quispe, who the government calls a top "narco-terrorist."
    Since the army started deploying more troops in the VRAE in August 2008, 40 soldiers have been killed and the army has claimed only a handful of deaths among rebels. President Alan Garcia is under increasing pressure to turn the tide.
    Garcia has increased funding in the VRAE to wipe out the last of the Shining Path, which has largely abandoned its Maoist ideology and war against the state to work in the lucrative drug trade instead.
  • Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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