PERU: Security has been strengthened for George Bush's visit to Peru tomorrow - the first by a serving US leader - after a car bomb near the US embassy in Lima killed nine people.
"No two-bit terrorists are going to prevent me from doing what we need to do and that is to promote our friendship in the Hemisphere," Mr Bush said when asked if would cancel his trip. "I'm still going," he added.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack on Wednesday night, although the US authorities suspect it was the work of Shining Path guerrillas.
Mr Jhon Caro, a former director of Peru's anti-terrorism police, said it was probably provoked by "Bush's declarations that he is going to fight against terrorism around the world".
However, both the Shining Path, the hardline Maoist rebel group that waged a bloody war against Peru's government in the 1980s, and the smaller rival Tupac Amaru insurgency denied responsibility for the bombing.
Two Shining Path spokesmen currently behind bars said that survivors have been seeking a political solution to their issues since 1993.
Hundreds of Shining Path rebels doing time in Peruvian prisons recently held a hunger strike, demanding new trials and better prison conditions.
"This attack does not benefit us; on the contrary, prison conditions will be even tougher now," said a rebel spokesman identified as "Comrade Arturo", speaking from the Castro Castro maximum security prison.
Likewise, an MRTA spokesman, also in Castro Castro, not only denied responsibility, but condemmed the bombing.
The blast blew out the windows of banks and shops in the street facing the embassy, but the embassy itself, set well back from the road, was unharmed. Thirty people were injured.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s hundreds of Peruvians died in attacks by the Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru. They have recently stepped up their activities once again in jungle areas of Peru.
Both the Shining Path and the Tupsv Amaru guerrillas used car bombs as weapons. The single worst incident was a Shining Path car bombing that killed 20 people and injured more than 250 in July 1992, in the Lima suburb of Miraflores.
The Shining Path, which at its height had some 10,000 followers, was virtually crushed just two months later when police arrested its elusive leader, Abimael Guzman, and six senior group leaders.
Over the next years the then-president, Mr Alberto Fujimori, approved draconian security measures and carried out a major crackdown on both guerrilla groups, rounding up hundreds of rebels and their sympathisers.
The Peruvian Interior Minister, Mr Fernando Rospigliosi, yesterday said several terrorist groups had apparently become active in Lima in the days leading up to Mr Bush's planned 17-hour visit.
In November Shining Path militants were arrested for allegedly planning to set off a car bomb outside the US embassy.
Mr Bush is expected to discuss regional security and trade with Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo in Lima as part of his four-day tour of Latin America. He is also visiting Mexico and El Salvador.
President Toledo vowed his government would use an "iron fist" against those responsible for theLima bomb and said he would guarantee Mr Bush's safety.
"Peru, my government and the brave Peruvian people will not allow terrorism to resurface in Peru," Mr Toledo said in at the UN world development conference in Monterrey, Mexico.