LIMA, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Gunmen killed three police officers and wounded another in a region where leftist guerrillas and cocaine traffickers operate in southern Peru, the interior minister said on Sunday.

Peruvian authorities say remnants of the Maoist Shining Path rebel group are active in the Ayacucho region, about 360 miles (580 km) southeast of Lima, where the attack took place, largely abandoning their ideological fight in favor of running drugs in the world's no. 2 cocaine producer.

"A plane has been sent to pick up the coffins and make sure the necessary procedures are carried out," Interior Minister Remigio Hernani told local radio station RPP.

The Ayacucho region is known as the birthplace of the Shining Path, which led a nearly two-decade rebellion until its leaders were captured and it collapsed in the early 1990s.

The attackers ambushed a police vehicle and opened fire late on Saturday, the report said.

The raid came days before Peru prepares to host world leaders at a meeting of the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, or APEC.

Last month, attackers ambushed an army convoy in the Andean region of Huancavelica, killing 15 people in one of the bloodiest attacks by suspected Shining Path rebels in recent years.

Like President Alvaro Uribe of neighboring Colombia, Peruvian President Alan Garcia receives anti-drug money from the United States and supports programs to eradicate coca. (Reporting by Maria Luisa Palomino; Writing by Helen Popper, editing by Patricia Zengerle)

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