<div style="text-align: justify; "><b style="font-size: 1rem;">Seven police died Saturday in an ambush while traveling in a coca-growing valley in southern Peru, the national police said.</b><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The attack took place in La Convencion province in the Cusco region, in a wide valley known as VRAEM (the acronym stands for Valley of the Rivers Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The armed forces there have been fighting drug gangs and the remnants of the Shining Path leftist group for decades.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We regret the loss of our police brothers, who were ambushed when they were traveling in a police vehicle in the town center of Natividad in #Vraem, where 7 police officers have died and one police officer has survived," the national police said on Twitter.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In August 2022, the Peruvian Army claimed to have seriously injured Shining Path leader Victor Quispe Palomino, or "Comrade Jose," in an operation against "terrorist camps."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A year and a half earlier, in January 2021, the Peruvian military dealt a severe blow to the guerrillas -- known in Spanish as the Sendero Luminoso -- by killing in the VRAEM the group's number two, a man known as "Comrade Raul," one of the most wanted men in Peru and a brother of Comrade Jose.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Almost all Shining Path leaders are dead or imprisoned, but their remnants number some 350 members, 80 of whom are armed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Maoist group emerged in 1980 when it launched a "people's war" against the government. The ensuing two decades of clashes with the army left a toll of 69,000 dead and missing, according to the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. AFP</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>