LIMA, Peru (AP) -- Suspected Shining Path rebels killed three park
                  rangers and robbed passenger buses and cargo trucks during a rash of
                  attacks in Peru's central Andes, authorities said Wednesday.

                  The rangers were shot Tuesday by masked assailants in a reserve for
                  vicuna, a small non-domesticated relative of the llama, about 275 miles
                  southeast of the capital, Lima.

                  On Monday, five masked intruders broke into the home of a rancher in a
                  nearby village and gunned him down in front of his family.

                  A spokeswoman for the Prefect of Ayacucho, the highland department
                  where the killings took place, said all the victims had their hands bound and
                  had been killed by a single bullet to the head, a "trademark of Shining Path"
                  rebels.

                  The rebels also stopped several passenger buses and trucks between
                  Saturday and Tuesday, robbing the occupants of food and cash, officials
                  said.

                  In one case, passengers of a minibus captured two of their assailants and
                  turned them in to authorities, the spokeswoman said.

                  The Shining Path raged during the late 1980s and early 1990s, staging
                  widespread attacks, assassinations of mayors and informers, and a vicious
                  car-bombing campaign in Lima.

                   Copyright 2000 The Associated Press.