Updated

Peruvian authorities say attackers believed to be Shining Path rebels killed three police officers and two women in an assault on a remote police post in a coca-growing region.

Police Maj. Quispe Gonzales tells The Associated Press that three more officers were wounded in the raid that ended in the early hours of Sunday. He says the two women killed were relatives of one of the slain officers.

The attack occurred in San Jose de Secce in Ayacucho province in Peru's south-central mountains.

Ayacucho is the birthplace of the Shining Path, which all but disappeared in the 1990s.

Remnants amounting to several hundred fighters have in recent months killed dozens of police and soldiers. They are chiefly funded by the cocaine trade.