Peru to Tighten Security for Bush

Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo promised a crackdown on terrorist groups Thursday and officials closed off parts of central Lima in the wake of a bomb blast that killed nine people near the U.S. Embassy in Peru. The attack came three days before a visit by President Bush.

No Americans were killed in the blast late Wednesday, which injured dozens and left debris scattered in the street outside the embassy. The White House said Bush’s visit would proceed Saturday as scheduled.

“I’m sure the president there did everything he can to make Lima safe for our trip,” Bush said from the Oval Office. “Two-bit terrorists aren’t going to prevent me from doing what we need to do, and that is to promote our friendship in the hemisphere.”

The car bomb exploded in front of a bank about 100 yards from the embassy, a fortress-like concrete structure in an upscale neighborhood in Lima, the Peruvian capital. The bank and a shopping center took the brunt of the blast, which left shattered corpses strewn across a parking lot and street.

No one claimed responsibility for the bombing. Thirty minutes before the explosion, an anonymous caller phoned in a tip to Peruvian security officials, according to press reports. Three officers of a unit assigned to protect diplomats were inspecting the car--smoke was drifting from its interior, apparently from a burning fuse--when it exploded.

Two of the officers were killed, and the third was seriously injured. The dead included a young man who was skating past the exploding car and three people inside the Banco de Credito bank.

The embassy, protected by a high wall and set back far from the street, suffered no damage.

Peruvian investigators said the bombing was similar to attacks by leftist guerrilla groups such as Sendero Luminoso in the 1980s and 1990s. A smaller bomb blast shook a Spanish-owned telephone company outside Lima on Wednesday.

“The courageous Peruvian people will not allow terrorism to return in Peru,” Toledo said Thursday at a U.N. development conference in Monterrey, Mexico. “My government will use an iron fist [against the perpetrators], and with the other it will apply the law.”

Toledo said he would return to Lima from the conference a day early. Early Thursday, Toledo’s Cabinet met in emergency session in Lima and First Vice President Raul Diez Canseco toured the scene of the blast.

“We will use all resources to find those responsible,” Diez Canseco said.

Interior Minister Fernando Rospigliosi told Peruvian radio that any of a number of groups or individuals may have carried out the attack. “The international terrorism situation is so complex right now that we can’t rule anything out,” he said.

The last major Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path, bombing in Lima was in 1997. In the years since, the Maoist guerrilla group has been largely defeated, its once formidable forces reduced to a few hundred troops active in Peru’s remote Amazon jungle.

In December, Peruvian officials said they had thwarted an attempt by Sendero Luminoso to bomb the U.S. Embassy.

Investigators estimated that Wednesday night’s bomb was made with up to 110 pounds of explosives. The force of the blast carved a hole into the asphalt and blew one body more than 150 feet across a four-lane avenue.

On Thursday, authorities in Lima closed off the streets around the presidential palace, where Bush is scheduled to meet with Toledo, the presidents of Colombia and Bolivia, and the vice president of Ecuador to discuss regional trade and the campaigns against leftist rebels and the drug trade.

The Peruvian government has said it will also ban air traffic over Lima during Bush’s 17-hour visit and take other extraordinary security measures. About 7,000 police will guard the area around the presidential palace.