LIMA, Peru -- About 40 people armed with machine guns and dynamite attacked a police station Tuesday near Ayacucho, site of last week's massive prison escape that left 16 inmates and guards dead, news reports said.
No injuries were reported in the latest hourlong attack during which four policemen guarding the station managed to fight off the assailants, the reports said.
The armed attackers who struck at 3 a.m. from a nearby church, fled in a truck eastward toward the jungle.
Special anti-subversion squads immediately were sent to the police station in Quinua, 20 miles south of Ayacucho which is 220 miles from Lima.
Police teams have been scouring the area since last Wednesday when 150 guerrillas attacked the Ayacucho Prison, freeing 304 inmates.
Fourteen inmates and two guards were killed in the five-hour, early morning gun battle.
Peruvian Interior Minister Gen. Jose Gagliardi labeled last week's attack 'the first guerrilla act' since civilian government returned to the nation 20 months ago.
During that time authorities have recorded more than 800 terrorist acts, mostly minor bombings of public property, which were blamed on a Maoist group Sendero Luminoso (Lighted Path).
The Ayacucho Prison attack was also attributed to the same group but Justice Minister Enrique Elias Laroza said the leftist faction was acting as the 'armed branch' of another group bent on destablizing the government.
He did not name the group, but President Fernando Belaunde Terry previously labeled the attack 'narco-terrorism -- the union of the vice of narcotics with the violence of terrorism.'
