Eight soldiers have been killed in Paraguay after their squad was ambushed.<br /><br /> The joint military-police force was patrolling near the Brazilian border against guerrillas from the Paraguayan People’s Army (EPP), a rebel group with suspected links to drug trafficking and a reputation for kidnappings.<br /><br /> The EPP is suspected to have carried out the attack. <br /><br /> “The Joint Task Force was organized and deployed to fulfill a mission – to bring peace to the area and fairly, there are many questions about the results,” said former Armed Forces Commander General Alfredo Machuca. “But you have to keep in mind that a subversive element is being fought against.”<br /><br /> 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.<br /><br /> The EPP has been blamed by authorities for a string of kidnappings, murders and attacks in the remote north of Paraguay.<br /><br /> In 2013 it carried out an attack in which five people died, its bloodiest to date.<br /><br /> The EPP is loosely modeled on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) which has recently agreed to lay down its arms after half a century of war.<br />
