Lima, Sep 8 (EFE).- Five suspected guerrillas were captured in the Valley of the Apurimac and Ene rivers, or VRAE, located in Peru's southern Ayacucho region, the Armed Forces Joint Command said Wednesday.

The arrests were made on Monday and Tuesday by military patrols in different parts of the VRAE, an area where a state of emergency was declared two years ago due to the presence of drug traffickers and the remnants of the Shining Path guerrilla group, the command said.

A 72-year-old man was arrested in Acocro district, a 51-year-old man was detained in the town of Totobamba and a third man, whose age was not provided, was arrested in Orcohuasi.

A 60-year-old woman was captured in Huaychao, located in Acosvinchos district, and a 39-year-old woman was detained in Orcosita, located in Pacaycasa district, the command said.

The armed forces and National Police established a special command in the VRAE to carry out counterinsurgency operations targeting the Shining Path's main "committees," which are working jointly with drug gangs.

The Shining Path's command, whose top leader is "Comrade Jose," is now running its own drug organization, the top military commander in the VRAE, Gen. Leonel Cabrera, said last month.

The Shining Path's remnants operate in the Upper Huallaga Valley under the command of Florindo Eleuterio Flores Hala, known as "Comrade Artemio," and in the VRAE region under Victor Quispe Palomino, alias Comrade Jose.

The United States is offering rewards of up to $5 million each for information leading to the capture of Comrade Artemio and Comrade Jose.

The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said in June that Peru had surpassed Colombia as the world's leading source of coca, producing 119,000 metric tons of the leaf in 2009.

The Maoist-inspired Shining Path launched its uprising on May 17, 1980, with an attack on Chuschi, a small town in Ayacucho province.

A truth commission appointed by former President Alejandro Toledo blamed the Shining Path for most of the nearly 70,000 deaths the panel ascribed to politically motivated violence during the two decades following the group's 1980 uprising.

The guerrilla group, according to commission estimates, also caused an estimated $25 billion in economic losses.

Shining Path founder Abimael Guzman Guzman, known to his fanatic followers as "President Gonzalo," was captured with his top lieutenants on Sept. 12, 1992, an event that marked the "defeat" of the insurgency.

The guerrilla leader, who was a professor of philosophy at San Cristobal University before initiating his armed struggle in the Andean city of Ayacucho, once predicted that 1 million Peruvians would probably have to die in the ushering-in of the new state envisioned by Shining Path.

The group became notorious for some of its innovations, such as blowing apart with dynamite the bodies of community service workers its members killed, or hanging stray canines from lampposts as warnings to "capitalist dogs."

The Shining Path's remnants did not comply with Guzman's order more than a decade ago to end the armed struggle, and he does not recognize them as members of the group.

The La Republica newspaper reported in May 2009 that Guzman, who is serving a life sentence for terrorism, called the remaining members of the guerrilla group operating in the VRAE region "mercenaries."