Peruvian troops on Sunday captured the wounded leader of a remnant of the once-powerful Shining Path rebel group, effectively dismantling a well-armed outlaw band that lived off the cocaine trade, Peruvian President Ollanta Humala said.
Humala, a former army lieutenant colonel, flew to the remote coca-growing Upper Huallaga Valley of central Peru to congratulate the police and soldiers who had snared the 50-year-old rebel, Comrade Artemio, and two of his confederates.
Artemio, whose given name is Florindo “Jose” Flores, was later flown to Lima where doctors at a police hospital operated on him to remove two bullets from his torso, said Raul Sanchez, spokesman for the chief prosecutor’s office. Artemio also had shrapnel wounds in both hands, he said.
As he arrived in Lima and was wheeled from a plane, journalists saw Artemio raise his right arm and shout something indiscernible.
“The Shining Path is no longer a threat to the country. It’s capacity is limited,” Humala said from the counternarcotics base Artemio was initially airlifted.
A photo released by the presidency showed him standing beside Artemio, both of the rebel’s hands bandaged along with his chest.
Humala said that with the capture of Artemio and several of his top lieutenants in recent weeks, the Upper Huallaga had been pacified, making agribusiness, cattle ranching and tourism now possible. The valley is currently the only region of Peru where US-financed coca eradication is occurring.
Analysts consider Artemio’s capture a crippling blow to a roughly 150-strong band that represented about half of what remains of the Shining Path, which killed thousands during the 1980s and 1990s.
He was apprehended at 3am, said Sanchez, near where he was wounded three days earlier under circumstances neither Humala nor other officials explained.
Peruvian Minister of Defense Alberto Otarola said on Friday that Artemio was wounded in combat with government forces early Thursday in the village of Puerto Pizana. However, local journalists have reported that at least one of his own men may have turned on him.
The other remaining Shining Path faction, also involved in the drug trade, is centered further south in the valley of the Apurimac and Ene rivers.
Humala said security forces would now focus efforts on fighting that group, which was blamed for an attack on a remote police station on Monday last week in which two officers were wounded.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
The US government has banned US government personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens, The Associated Press (AP) has learned. Four people with direct knowledge of the matter told the AP about the policy, which was put into effect by departing US ambassador Nicholas Burns in January shortly before he left China. The people would speak only on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a confidential directive. Although some US agencies already had strict rules on such relationships, a blanket “nonfraternization” policy, as it is known, has
OPTIONS: Asked if one potential avenue to a third term was having J.D. Vance run for the top job and then pass the baton to him, Trump said: ‘That’s one,’ among others US President Donald Trump on Sunday that “I’m not joking” about trying to serve a third term, the clearest indication he is considering ways to breach a constitutional barrier against continuing to lead the country after his second term ends at the beginning of 2029. “There are methods which you could do it,” Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News from Mar-a-Lago, his private club. He elaborated later to reporters on Air Force One from Florida to Washington that “I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term
RSS