3 soldiers killed in Peru on election eve

LIMA – Three soldiers were killed and six others were wounded in southeastern Peru on Saturday in a clash with leftist guerrillas from the Shining Path group, the military announced.

The attack occurred on the eve of a runoff presidential election, which pits Keiko Fujimori, daughter of a jailed ex-strongman, against Ollanta Humala, a nationalist ex-military man.

Shining Path is a militant Maoist organization that initiated a guerrilla campaign in Peru in 1980, with the stated goal of replacing what it saw as bourgeois democracy with “new democracy.”

Since the capture of its leader Abimael Guzman in 1992, the group has been carrying out only sporadic operations.