(6 Oct 1999) Spanish/Nat
A weekend clash between Peru's armed forces and Maoist Shining Path rebels has left five soldiers dead.
Scores of Shining Path guerrillas ambushed an army helicopter on Saturday after it landed in Peru's central jungle.
Peru's president has said the military will continue "to pursue, capture and annihilate" the rebels.
The bodies of five soldiers killed in the ambush were flown to Lima's military airport from the small jungle town of Satipo, over 280 miles (450 km) east of the capital.
Friends and colleagues had silently congregated to await their arrival.
Wrapped in the Peruvian flag, the coffins were solemnly carried in procession - the latest victims of Peru's 19-year-old conflict.
Military units had recently stepped up operations in Peru's highlands and jungle in search of the rebel group's diminishing forces.
Alberto Fujimori, Peru's president said 400 soldiers had been pursuing the rebels through the rugged jungle territory, still classified as an emergency zone, when the confrontation took place.
But the authorities were still looking for further answers.
SOUNDBITE: (Spanish)
"All the morning we've been busy trying to collect more precise information on a serious incident that occurred in a confrontation between army patrols accompanied by national intelligence officers and Shining Path members."
SUPER CAPTION: Alberto Fujimori, Peruvian President
Original reports had erroneously stated that nine soldiers had been killed.
The president spoke of the Shining Path's forest hideout.
SOUNDBITE: (Spanish)
"It's (the wood) is very dense where the Shining Path members are. There are probably some 60 or so men, they have various large arms and large amounts of ammunition."
SUPER CAPTION: Alberto Fujimori, Peruvian President
Fighting has left 30,000 dead since 1980, including soldiers, rebels and civilians.
But some say the latest incident shouldn't be seen as a precursor to further confrontation.
SOUNDBITE: (Spanish)
"The situation is how is it possible for them to get away with an ambush in an area where an intelligence officer of our army and the head of a counter insurgency were based? It's likely to become clearer over the next few days but I'd like to say it doesn't change the fact of Shining Path's defeat one iota. Nor does it change their minimal expression and dispersion throughout that zone - and it's important not to exaggerate the current news as if they've established a huge comeback and they're going to reignite the Shining Path war - that's certain."
SUPER CAPTION: Carlos Tapia, Terrorism Analyst
The Shining Path in the late 1980s and early 1990s almost brought the Peruvian government to its knees.
The rebel group assassinated mayors and informers in the countryside and waging a vicious car-bombing campaign.
The car bomb attack in Lima, in 1992, was one of the movement's bloodiest terror attacks.
Dozens of people died when the car exploded in the middle of a residential area.
With almost 10-thousand members, Shining Path's fierce tactics and determination had convinced (m) millions of Peruvians that Abimael Guzman, the absolute leader of the movement, was next to occupy the presidential palace.
But in 1990, Alberto Fujimori won the presidential elections.
He promised that by April of 1995, he would have wiped out "Sendero Luminoso" (Shining Path.)
Many thought it was wishful thinking.
That was until Guzman was captured in a Lima safe house in September 1992, along with most of the group's top leaders.
Some had thought Guzman invincible.
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