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60 workers kidnapped from Peruvian project

Armed raiders on Monday kidnapped about 60 workers employed by an Argentine company to help build a natural gas pipeline in southeastern Peru, a government statement said.

"They are asking for US$1 million, high-tech communications equipment and explosives," said a police officer in Ayacucho, some 600km southeast of Lima.

The officer, who asked not to be identified, called the attackers "presumed terrorists" but a government statement described them as armed criminals.

The statement said about 60 kidnappers struck at the Toccate construction camp in La Mar province, seizing a similar number of employees of Argentina's Techint Group.

"The armed forces have been deployed," it said. "The government has taken the necessary measures to free the kidnapped people, preserving their physical integrity and their life."

The attackers in Monday's raid, armed with Russian-made machine guns and some wearing masks, took their hostages just 2km away from the camp where they began negotiations with Techint officials, the police said.

Later, another police officer, quoting an internal police document, said "there are still some 20 presumed terrorists in the Toccate camp, under the command of Comrade Mio who said that they would begin to kill the hostages if they noted the presence of members of the police or military."

Other police and army officials also described the attackers as "terrorists," a term usually used to refer to leftist Shining Path guerrillas who waged a long and bloody war against the state in the 1980s and 1990s.
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