GEORGETOWN, Guyana: A heavily armed gang suspected of killing 23 people in two village massacres drove back a security assault at its hideout in dense Amazonian jungle, Guyanese police said Sunday.

Scores of soldiers and policemen surrounded the group, led by Guyana's most-wanted fugitive, late Saturday near the South American country's border with Suriname.

But fugitive Rondell Rawlins and his gang repelled the initial attack and managed to escape deeper into the jungle after injuring three police officers, police spokesman Ivelaw Whittaker said. One gang member was killed.

President Bharrat Jagdeo has accused Rawlins and his cohorts of planning meticulous and deadly assaults on the coastal village of Lusignan and the mining town of Bartica earlier this year. He also has linked Rawlins' gang to the 2006 assassination of Agriculture Minister Satyadeo Sawh.

On Sunday, Whittaker said police recovered several rifles, nearly 2,000 rounds of ammunition, stores of food, and a diary that he says provides "incontrovertible evidence of Rondell Rawlins' planning and execution of the killings at Lusignan and Bartica."

Whittaker also said that security forces at the jungle hideout found electronic equipment that belonged to police from the western river town of Bartica, where gunmen killed 12, including three police officers, in a February assault.

In statements to local radio and newspapers, Rawlins has claimed responsibility for the Jan. 26 killings of six adults and five children in Lusignan, and threatened more deadly assaults.

He said the attack was an effort to get back his pregnant 18-year-old girlfriend, who he says was kidnapped by Guyanese security forces. Authorities have denied the allegation.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the Bartica slayings.

The massacres have shaken Guyana's security system and raised concerns about the effectiveness of its military and police.