Image copyright AFP Image caption The soldiers are said to have been on a routine mission

An ambush on a military patrol in Paraguay has left at least eight soldiers dead.

The country's interior minister said the soldiers had been on a routine mission when they were attacked with explosives and gunfire.

Francisco de Vargas said it was likely the gunmen were part of the Paraguayan People's Army (EPP).

The attack took place near the village of Arroyito, some 500km (300 miles) north of the capital, Asuncion.

Mr de Vargas said the gunmen had placed explosives in the road routinely used by the soldiers.

The EPP is estimated to number between 50 and 150 people.

The group is a Marxist-inspired rebel group which has been active in the impoverished northern region since 2008.

It is thought to have killed about 50 people but says it only targets the country's oligarchy. </s> ASUNCION: Eight Paraguayan soldiers died Saturday in a roadside explosion, the government said, blaming it on a leftist guerrilla group.

Interior Minister Francisco de Vargas said the attack occurred on a rural road near the village of Arroyito, some 500 kilometers (300 miles) north of Asuncion.

“They placed explosives in the road where a patrol routinely passes.

Because of the manner in which it was done, we believe it was an attack by the known criminal group EPP,” he said, using the Spanish acronym for the Paraguayan People’s Army.

De Vargas said eight soldiers died in the attack.

Since the guerrilla group first appeared in 2008, it has killed some 50 people in attacks, the majority of them police, soldiers and cattle raisers, according to police.

The group has been active in the cattle-raising region where Saturday’s explosion occurred. </s> Paraguay says eight troops killed in ambush

ASUNCION, Aug 27 (Reuters) - An ambush in the north of Paraguay killed eight soldiers, authorities said on Saturday, adding that the attack bore the hallmarks of the guerrilla group known as the Paraguayan People's Army.

The Paraguayan People's Army, known locally by its Spanish initials EPP, is a small leftist group formed just over a decade ago.

It is loosely modeled on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which has said in recent days that it will lay down its arms after half a century of war.

The security forces who officials said were attacked on Saturday belong to a unit created by the government in 2013 to combat the EPP.

"At about 9am this morning a routine patrol was the object of an attack on a country road in the Arroyito district ... the attackers detonated explosives as the truck passed and then carried out a cowardly armed attack on the wounded soldiers," said the Interior Ministry in a statement.

The government said it is investigating the attack, which took place in a rural part of Concepcion, about 450 kilometers (280 miles) north of capital Asuncion, in an area where the EPP is known to operate.

The shadowy EPP sometimes leave pamphlets at the site of attacks. Authorities have not said if anything like that has been found.

Interior Minister Francisco de Vargas told a local radio station that the manner of the attack - explosive artifacts by a road - was typical of the EPP. "It is very probable that that is what happened," he said.

The EPP has been blamed by authorities for a string of kidnappings, murders and attacks in the remote north of Paraguay, an area of cattle ranches, poor rural laborers, and illegal marijuana plantations.

In 2013 it carried out an attack in which five people died, its bloodiest to date.

The group is believed to hold three people captive at present: a police agent who has been held for over two years, and two Mennonites, members of a religious sect of European background who have significant dairy farming communities in Paraguay. </s> ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — Five soldiers have been killed in an attack by suspected rebels in Paraguay's north, the country's interior minister said Saturday.

Interior Minister Francisco De Vargas said Saturday that the attack occurred in Arroyito, a town about 305 miles (490 kilometers) from Asuncion. He says two more soldiers were gravely wounded.

Authorities suspect that the attack was carried out by a little-known Paraguayan guerrilla group called the Paraguayan People's Army.

It comes just days after Colombia and the largest rebel group in that country reached a peace deal to end the longest running insurgency in Latin America. </s> ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — Eight soldiers were killed in an attack in Paraguay’s north by suspected members of a little-known rebels group, authorities said Saturday, just days after Colombian officials and guerrillas reached a peace deal to end the longest running insurgency in Latin America.

Paraguayan Interior Minister Francisco De Vargas reported the first five deaths from the Saturday attack in Arroyito, a town about 305 miles (490 kilometers) from Asuncion. Dr. Bernardo Jacquet, a physician at Hospital Concepcion, located some 55 miles (90 kilometers) from where the attack occurred, later said that the death toll had risen to eight.

Authorities suspect the attack was carried out by a little-known Paraguayan guerrilla group called the Paraguayan People’s Army.

Federico Delfino, the country’s prosecutor for anti-kidnapping efforts, says that the attackers got away with eight M4 carbines, bulletproof vests, and the victims’ personal belongings.

The Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, on Wednesday announced the finalization of a peace agreement after more than four years of grueling negotiations in Cuba. A cease-fire in the Colombian conflict that lasted more than a half-century will take effect at midnight next Monday.

The Paraguayan government considers members of the Paraguayan People’s Army to be terrorists under an anti-terrorism law.

The Paraguayan People’s Army was blamed last year in the killing of a German couple. Their bodies were found after the rebels abducted the pair from their cattle farm and demanded that the owner of a farm pay $300,000 and give food to the poor. </s> Dozens of suspected Brazilian gangsters blasted into a secure vault containing millions of dollars in southeastern Paraguay on Monday, leaving a policeman dead in what officials called the “robbery of the century.”

Some 50 gunmen with explosives and military-grade weaponry left the city of Ciudad del Este looking like a war zone after a two-hour overnight assault on a security firm and police headquarters, authorities and witnesses said.

A joint Paraguayan-Brazilian police operation against the fleeing assailants on the country’s porous border — near the famous Iguazu waterfalls — killed three suspects and resulted in “at least four arrests,” Paraguay’s interior ministry tweeted.

The tweet showed a photograph of a policeman standing over the body of a man in bloodied camouflage clothing. Other pictures on the ministry’s Twitter page showed what were apparently the getaway cars snared by police and a collection of captured ammunition and flak jackets.

Brazilian authorities confirmed there had been a deadly clash but would not give more details.

“There was an exchange of fire,” a federal police source for the state of Parana told AFP. “There were dead and wounded but we are not giving more information for now. We’re still looking for people.”

Brazilian President Michel Temer promised to support Paraguayan police “with all necessary resources.”

“The Brazilian government expresses solidarity with the victims of this criminal act and, especially, with the relatives of the dead Paraguayan policeman,” he said.

Shocked Paraguayan officials said it was an unprecedented attack for Ciudad del Este, a key trading hub near the borders of Brazil and Argentina in an area linked to drug gangs.

The target of the raid was Prosegur, a firm specializing in safely transporting cash. Far from simply overwhelming security at the facility, the raiders caused multiple diversions around the city, setting vehicles on fire to block roads and detonating explosives near police headquarters.

“The noise rang out around the city like bombs in a war,” one man who witnessed the attack, Antonio del Puerto, told AFP.

Television images from the scene showed the Prosegur building was virtually destroyed, with rocket casings lying around and burned-out vehicles in the streets.

Police reports said the attackers included members of First Capital Command, one of Brazil’s most powerful drug gangs, which is based in Sao Paulo and has fought turf battles in Rio de Janeiro and across the country’s prison system.

Public prosecutor Denise Duarte said the men wore masks and spoke Portuguese, the language of Brazil.

It remained unclear just how much the assailants made off with.

Duarte said the Prosegur vault “was full” at the time of the robbery. Police said the vault can hold up to $40 million in cash but authorities had yet to verify the amount.

The attackers abandoned several vehicles at the site, including armored trucks, one of them mounted with what was described as an anti-aircraft gun.

“The security firm’s premises has been destroyed and the attack caused chaos and terror in the city,” the governor of surrounding Alto Parana state, Justo Zacarias, told reporters.

“Nothing like this has ever happened in Paraguay.”

Paraguay’s police chief, Luis Rojas, said it was “very feasible” that the attackers had help from within the police force.

He said he had contacted security forces in Brazil and Argentina to help catch the robbers.

“I am going to seek the resources and the best men to work to catch these people,” he said.
At least eight Paraguayan Army soldiers are killed in an ambush by suspected Paraguayan People's Army (EPP) insurgents, near the village of Arroyito, in northern Paraguay.