Peru Car Bomb Kills Eight

A car bomb exploded outside the US embassy in Lima late last night, killing at least eight people and injuring 30 more, officials have said. The blast comes three days ahead of a visit by the US president, George Bush.

At least four bodies could be seen in the rubble, including a boy wearing roller skates, radio reports said.

A state department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that no American citizens were hurt in the explosion. The official declined to comment further.

Mr Bush is set to arrive in Lima on Saturday for a meeting with the Peruvian president, Alejandro Toledo, and leaders from Colombia, Bolivia and Ecuador. It was unclear how the car bombing might affect Bush's travel schedule. White House spokeswoman Anne Womack declined to comment early today.

The blast occurred at about 10.45pm (0345 GMT Thursday), in an upscale area of popular late-night restaurants, movie theatres and shops.

The interior minister, Fernando Rospigliosi, told reporters at the scene that the blast killed two policemen and four other people.

Deputy fire commander Juan Piperis said there were unconfirmed reports of nine dead. He said 30 to 40 people had been injured and taken to a nearby hospital. He estimated about 30kg of explosives had been used in the bomb attack.

Mr Bush's planned trip to Lima "has activated terrorist groups of diverse origins that are trying to intimidate us just as they tried to intimidate the United States," Mr Rospigliosi said. "But they're not going to intimidate us just as they didn't intimidate the United States with the September 11 attacks."

Mr Rospigliosi said he was "certain that there was no way President Bush will change his plans to visit Peru because of this terrorist attack".

The street was littered with shattered glass, shards of brick and concrete and charred car parts. The blast damaged at least 10 cars in the area, including the one that apparently contained the bomb. A small police truck near the explosion site was left mangled, its hood peeled back and shredded.

"I will not permit democracy to be undermined by terrorist attacks," Mr Toledo said, speaking on Radioprogramas, Peru's leading radio station, from Monterrey, Mexico, where he had just arrived for a UN conference. "We will not give one centimetre. I am going to apply a hard-line policy within the framework of the law."

A statement from the US embassy condemned "the barbaric terrorist bombing this evening in the vicinity of our embassy in Lima. We extend our deepest sympathies to the victims and their families ... the United States government is providing all possible assistance to Peruvian authorities so those responsible for this horrific crime are brought to justice".

Police secured the scene with yellow tape and covered at least two bodies with orange plastic tarps.

A seven-floor hotel and bank on the first floor across the street from the embassy were damaged in the blast. The embassy, a fortress-like structure with narrow windows, suffered no apparent damage, according to news reports. It sits behind a 20ft high wall and is set far back from the street.

Jhon Caro, a former director of Peru's anti-terrorism police, blamed the attack on the Shining Path rebel group. He said it was probably provoked by "Bush's declarations that he is going to fight against terrorism around the world. The Shining Path is responding to President Bush's declarations with this act of terror."

In a separate blast yesterday, a small bomb exploded just before dawn outside an office of Peru's Spanish-owned telephone company, police said. The explosion damaged the first floor of a Telefonica payment office in northern Lima but caused no injuries, the company said in a statement.

Police said an unidentified man left the explosive in a backpack in front of the building and then fled in a car. On Tuesday night, a package containing a grenade was tossed from a moving car onto a street in north-eastern Lima. The grenade exploded but there were no injuries, police said.

Neither of Peru's largely defeated guerrilla movements - the Shining Path and the much smaller Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement - had taken responsibility for the incidents.

Both groups terrorized Peru in the 1980s and early 1990s with car bombings, assassinations and sabotage, although neither has set off explosives in Lima in several years.

The last car bomb that went off in Lima occurred in May 1997 and was set by the Maoist Shining Path insurgency. The rebel group was greatly weakened after the capture of its founder and other important leaders in the 1990s. In recent years it has had a presence only in remote jungle areas.