The success of the Peruvian armed forces in combating terrorism in eastern Peru’s Ucayali River Valley offers excellent insights into the type of effort required to defeat drug-financed insurgencies. During the early and middle 1990s, the Peruvian marines adopted a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy in the Ucayali and played a key role in the country’s war against two leftist insurgent groups, both of which engaged in terrorism. The government established an effective framework for civil-military cooperation that earned the support of the Ucayali population. It waged an aggressive intelligence campaign, mobilizing rural communities to participate in government-sponsored, self-defense militias and greatly restricting the illegal narcotics trade.

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