Peruvian Rebel Group Finds New Life

All but forgotten, Peru's Shining Path guerrilla group has again become a force to be reckoned with, killing more people in October than it had in any month since the 1990s, the Washington Post reports in a look at its secretive ranks. Today’s drug-financed Path leans more liberal narcoterrorist than fire-breathing Maoist, having shed some of the brutal ways of founder Abimael Guzmán, who believed the path to power required killing 10% of the country's people.

Since his 1992 imprisonment, Shining Path has instead protected villages, targeting mainly military and anti-drug authorities; its dogma has become pro-worker liberalism. “The Shining Path is working as if it were a company,” said Peru’s vice-president. “They have been contaminated with the capitalism of drug trafficking.” (More Peru stories.)