WORLD : Peru Crackdown After Slaying

LIMA, Peru — Police blocked highways today, and an official said 15,000 people were detained following the assassination of a former defense minister, the most prominent victim of the nation’s 10-year-old guerrilla war.

Enrique Lopez Albujar was killed Tuesday when Shining Path rebels armed with machine guns killed him near a shopping center in a Lima suburb, police said. Witnesses said the four gunmen fled in an automobile.

Police units aided by six helicopters searched through Lima and its outskirts Tuesday night and early today, stopping about 8,000 cars in a search for suspects, police said. Most of the 15,000 detained were taken in for not carrying documents and are expected to be released in the next few days, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.