Sendero Luminoso (SL) or "Shining Path." The group's full name is the Communist Party of Peru for the Shining Path of Jose Carlos Mariategui.

SL seeks to overthrow existing Peruvian state institutions and replace them with a Maoist peasant revolutionary regime, to be known as the People's Republic of a New Democracy. The group also opposes foreign involvement in Peru and other Latin American guerrilla groups.

Authorities allege that the remnants of Shining Path have abandoned ideological causes in favor of controlling the local drug trade.

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For years, SL conducted an indiscriminate bombing campaign and selective assassinations. It targeted diplomatic missions in Peru and attempted a car bombing of the U.S. Embassy in 2001. SL also periodically raided rural villages. Some reports indicated that SL hacked its victims to death with machetes.

Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori waged an effective campaign against rebel groups, including SL and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. Thousands of SL guerrillas, including several leaders, were convicted during the aggressive counter-terrorist campaign. During the campaign, Fujimori seized near-dictatorial powers with the support of the military. SL's activities tapered off following the crackdown, though remnants of the group continued to operate in some jungle areas.

Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimated that more than 69,000 people died in two decades of concentrated fighting between government forces and rebel groups in Peru.

Although Tupac Amaru and SL are both communist rebel groups, they do not cooperate with one another. Tupac Amaru is tied to Colombia's FARC movement and has received aid from Cuba. SL sees itself as the last remaining true communist movement. The two groups have been known to fight each other over "taxes" levied on Peruvian alleged drug-traffickers.

SL activity fell to a low of 90 incidents in 1999, but has gradually increased since. In 2005, the number of incidents jumped to 426, a 46 percent increase over 2004. The heightened activity sparked fears of an SL resurgence and a return to the violence of the 1980s and early 1990s.

Shining Path has historically had several sources of financing, including robbery and extortion. In the early to mid-1990s, the SL earned much of its money by "taxing" the drug-traffickers and acting as an intermediary between Colombian drug processors and peasant coca growers. Since the near-decimation of the Shining Path, drug-traffickers and coca growers have taken control of the area. SL now makes its money by offering its protective services to those in the drug industry or other illegal activities.

The group's brutality against the population in the 1980s and 1990s proved counterproductive. Its activities cost more than 69,000 lives. Subsequently, the Shining Path learned from those mistakes and altered its strategy in an attempt to build solidarity among the peasants and to provoke the government forces to crack down and create a backlash.

Jose Carlos Mariategui founded the Communist Party of Peru in 1928. It was originally known as the Socialist Party and it participated in Lenin's Third International. After 1959, a split occurred between Maoists and Marxists within the party.

Former professor Abimael Guzman founded Sendero Luminoso in 1970 as a Maoist offshoot of the Peruvian Communist Party. Guzman's revolutionary Marxist teachings provided an ideological foundation for the group. SL did not begin its armed campaign until 1980, when it launched its "People's War."

SL seeks to incite a rural revolution that would replace the existing government with a socialist Indian-run state. The group adopted indigenous names and symbols to attract support.

The SL guerrilla campaign intensified in 1988 and continued until the government crackdown in the 1990s. During the fighting, SL took control over large parts of the Peruvian countryside.

The group has traditionally organized itself into cells of five-seven people, with limited inter-cell contact, to help resist infiltration. Most SL cadres come from the urban and rural poor, with students and teachers also being well represented. Children have been recruited to carry out assassinations and other SL operations.

In the past, when SL guerrillas seized territory, they either killed or expelled landlords, government officials, merchants and medium-scale farmers. The guerrillas then reorganized agricultural production and redistributed land. SL appointed its own governors to direct agricultural distribution and production. These SL leaders were meant to be the foundation for the People's Republic of New Democracy. Since the Shining Path became weaker than the coca growers and drug-traffickers, they altered some of their land-use policies.

Following the capture of SL leader Abimael Guzman Reynoso, the group split into two factions. The first, led by Jose (political) and Alipio (military), vowed to continue the fight without Guzman. That first group is active in the Apurimac-Ene River Valleys. The other group, led by Artemio and active in the Huallaga Valley, wanted to negotiate a political agreement with the government. The Peruvian government refused to negotiate with the Huallaga Valley group, and in late 2004, that faction returned to the fight. Now that both factions are actively fighting, they are beginning to work together.

The successful program against the Shining Path, which took more than a decade, drove remnants to remote parts of Peru, where they subsequently strengthened ties with the narcotics trade. The organization, entwined with narcotics-trafficking, has continued to be a threat. Peru's primary counterterrorism concern has remained fighting Shining Path remnants.

Factions in the Upper Huallaga River Valley sought to regroup and replenish their ranks following significant setbacks suffered in 2007. Separately, militants in the Apurimac and Ene River Valley maintained control over that area.

Both groups continued to engage in drug-trafficking. During 2008, they carried out 64 terrorist acts in remote coca-growing areas that killed at least 12 police, four civilians, and 15 members of the military. Political objectives have been played down of late, but Maoism is still utilized to justify illicit activities.

September: Guzman was captured by government forces and sentenced to life in prison.

Aug. 28: Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued a report estimating that some 69,000 people had been killed during the 20-year war against the Shining Path.

June 28: Around 30 Shining Path terrorists attacked a government-guarded asphalt plant in Cangari, Peru, killing one soldier.

Sept. 26: Peruvian courts began a retrial for jailed Shining Path leader Abimael Guzman and 11 other group members. Peru's top court had anulled the original military court decision in 2003 and ordered a retrial. An attempt to retry the case in 2004 ended when Guzman and his supporters vocally disrupted the proceedings and two of three judges stepped down.

Dec. 20: Shining Path rebels attacked a police patrol in a drug-producing region of northeast Peru, killing eight officers. Authorities linked the attack to rebel remnants aligned with drug smugglers. The attack was the second within a month.

Nov. 26: In a television interview, Comrade Artemio offered a truce with the Peruvian government in exchange for amnesty and a negotiated end to the armed conflict. Two days later, Peruvian security forces raided the jungle camp where the interview originated. A number of Shining Path members were arrested, but Artemio escaped.

Nov. 13: Militants ambushed and killed four police officers in Tayacaja, Huancavelica province. Authorities blamed the attack on the Shining Path.

Nov. 28: Peruvian police killed Epifanio Espiritu Acosta, the second-in-command of the Shining Path cell led by Artemio. Eight other Shining Path guerrillas were arrested in the operation in Aucayacu.

February: National police arrested 15 suspected Shining Path members over a two-week period in Lima and northern Peru.

March 5: Five armed attackers killed two Peruvian federal police near the town of Chanchamayo in the Junin department.

March 28: Shining Path members working with drug-traffickers killed a police officer and wounded 11 others in an attack on anti-drug patrols. The militant group reportedly was led by one of Shining Path's last remaining leaders, Comrade Artemio.

April 30: Shining Path attackers killed two civilians acting as guides for military personnel near the town of Ancoin in Ayacucho department.

June 27: Members of Shining Path attacked government forces on a counternarcotics operation near Sivia in Ayacucho department, killing one.

August: Peru's army began an offensive called "Operation Excellence" aimed at taking control of the Vizcatan region in northern Ayacucho department. While there were unconfirmed reports of Shining Path casualties, the military suffered losses in a number of militant counterattacks.

Oct. 9: Shining Path militants operating in the northern Huancavelica department remotely triggered a bomb underneath a truck returning Peruvian army soldiers to a nearby base. The attackers then opened fire from both sides of the road, killing 14 soldiers and two civilians. Sixteen others were wounded. It was the deadliest Shining Path incident since the 1992 capture of group founder Abimael Guzmán.

Oct. 14: Fourteen suspected Shining Path militants fired on a federal police vehicle traveling on the highway north of Tingo Maraa in Huanuco department from both sides of the road. Two of the five officers inside were injured; one later died.

Nov. 16: Three federal police officers were killed by Shining Path militants in an ambush in the town of Huanta in northern Ayacucho.

Nov. 26: Suspected Shining Path militants ambushed a federal police convoy on the highway some 12 miles north of Tingo Maria in Huanuco department, killing five police and wounding four others.

Dec. 27: Shining Path militants attacked a military helicopter in Vizcatan, killing one soldier and wounding two others. Separately, police recovered a Peruvian Communist Party's Central Committee document outlining Shining Path's objectives in light of the government's aggressive campaign: "In 2009, we will continue (fighting) in Vizcatan and the revolutionary war will have expanded to other parts of the country."

August: Peru's President Alan Garcia vowed to eliminate Shining Path, but noted that the process would require time and patience. About the same time, reports emerged of a rebel attack in San Jose de Secce where three policeman and two civilians were killed by rebels.

Sept. 21: The federal police arrested the suspected "principal coordinator" of the Shining Path group in an operation in the jungles of northeast Peru. Police apprehended Branly Maldonado Vasquez in Santa Rosa de Yanajanca, the alleged Shining Path political leader in Yanajanca. Officials found flags bearing the hammer and sickle, as well as a firearm and leaflets.