El Paso, Tex. ? Undeterred by what he called “two-bit terrorists,” President Bush opened a Latin American trip Thursday that takes him from the border with Mexico to the U.S. Embassy in Peru where a car bomb exploded overnight.

“Sometimes it seems like the terror threat might be going away, but all you got to do is look on your TV today and be reminded about how evil these murderers are,” Bush told Texans at a noisy sendoff rally on the first leg of his four-day trip to Mexico, Peru and El Salvador.

Firefighters carry an injured woman after an apparent car bomb exploded near the U.S. Embassy in Lima. The explosion late Wednesday killed at least nine people, local media reported. The blast came three days ahead of a visit by President Bush.

Telling his audience about an overnight car bombing outside the U.S. embassy in the Peruvian capital of Lima and a suicide bombing in Jerusalem, Bush said, “We cannot let the terrorists take over freedom-loving societies, and we will not.”

He said he was asking Congress, as part of his request for $27 billion in emergency spending submitted on Thursday, for an additional $5 billion to beef up counter-terrorism security at U.S. airports and borders.

He said he wanted to “make sure Americans are more secure and more safe than ever before.”

Officials suspect Shining Path

Minutes before leaving the White House Thursday morning with first lady Laura Bush, the president addressed the car bombing that took place about four blocks from the embassy in Lima, which he is due to visit on Saturday.

Bush said “we might have an idea” who set off the bomb. “They’ve been around before,” he said.

The President did not identify the suspected group; but he nodded when a reporter asked if the terrorist group Shining Path, thought to be in eclipse, was on the upsurge.

Two U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Shining Path is suspected in the Wednesday night attack.

At least nine people were killed and dozens injured in the blast near an open shopping mall. None was American, the State Department said.

“You bet I am going,” Bush said, indicating he wasn’t worried about security for the trip.

“You know, two-bit terrorists aren’t going to prevent me from doing what we need to do, and that is to promote our friendship in the hemisphere,” he said.

Presidential precedent

Bush will be the first sitting U.S. president to visit Peru.

Before departing, he met privately at Andrews Air Force Base with Milton Green. Green’s wife, Barbara, and her daughter, Kristen Wormsley, were killed when a terrorist set off grenades in a Protestant church in Islamabad, Pakistan, where the Greens worked at the U.S. Embassy. Green had flown back to the United States with the bodies of his wife and stepdaughter.

The first stop on Bush’s trip was to be Monterrey, Mexico, for a two-day U.N. development conference, where Bush was to promote a new aid plan with billions of dollars he plans to distribute to poor countries that demonstrate an intent to fight corruption.

First, Bush visited a crossing point at El Paso to see U.S. operations at the 1,951-mile border. He was announcing that his administration reached a 22-point border agreement with Mexico much like the one Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge signed with Canada in December.

A list of goals, planned technology studies and information-sharing commitments, the U.S.-Mexico agreement to be signed today in Monterrey is designed to tighten border security while also preventing border traffic jams and other delays to trade.

“On the one hand, we want the legal commerce” and families who travel back and forth, Bush said in the El Paso airport hangar.

“On the other hand, we want to use our technology to make sure we weed out those who we don’t want in our country the terrorists, the coyotes, the smugglers, those who prey on innocent life,” he said.

In interviews Wednesday, Bush said he has reached no decision whether to consolidate federal agencies that handle border duties, as has been recommended.

Under the new foreign aid initiative disclosed last week, Bush would offer poor countries about $1.7 billion the first year, about $3.3 billion in the second year and $5 billion in the third and subsequent years. If approved by Congress, the money would reward nations that are fighting corruption and implementing political reforms.