Police officer killed, six wounded in Peru ambush

LIMA, March 24 (Reuters) - Suspected rebels killed one police officer and wounded six others in a jungle ambush in a coca-growing region of Peru, police said on Monday.

The officers were caught off guard late on Sunday while on patrol in Ayacucho -- the birthplace of the Maoist Shining Path guerrilla group -- some 360 miles (580 km) southeast of the capital Lima.

Authorities said Marisela Solier was killed by a remnant of of the Shining Path, which the government says has all but abandoned its ideological fight in favor of running drugs in Peru, the world's no. 2 cocaine producer.

"She was hit by the narco-terrorists," Interior Minister Luis Alva Castro told reporters.

The Shining Path led a nearly two-decade rebellion until its leadership was captured and collapsed in the early 1990s.

But some members of the group are still active, especially in the country's main coca-growing areas, and have killed at least 19 police, soldiers and anti-narcotics workers since President Alan Garcia took office in July 2006.

Some government officials have said the violence stems from eradication efforts and the growing influence of Mexican drug cartels that buy cocaine in Peru.

Like President Alvaro Uribe of neighboring Colombia, Garcia receives anti-drug money from the United States and supports programs to eradicate coca fields. Cocaleros, or coca farmers, say growing coca is more lucrative than raising traditional crops. (Reporting by Jean Luis Arce; Writing by Dana Ford; Editing by Xavier Briand)