10
University Daily Kansan
Nation/World
Friday, Oct. 11, 1985
U.S. advisers safe after base raid
United Press International
LA UNION, El Salvador — Rebels attacked a military training center near La Union yesterday, killing at least 42 soldiers in their most serious assault in two years. A group of U.S. military advisers at the base escaped injury.
The early morning attack by about 300 leftist rebels came on the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, a coalition of five guerrilla groups known by its Spanish initials FMLN.
Military high command spokesman Lt. Col. Rene Emilio Ponce said the rebels were driven off after a two-hour battle at the Armed Forces Military Training Center near the eastern city of La Union, about 96 miles southeast of the capital city of San Salvador.
But fighting continued later yesterday in surrounding areas, and helicopters and fighter jets could be seen flying overhead, officials said.
Ponce said 10 rebels were killed when the army dropped troopers
from helicopters to repel the assault on the camp, where about 1,750 recruits from different branches of the armed forces were being trained.
A second spokesman, Lt. Col.
Carlos Aviles, said 42 soldiers,
including two officers, were killed and
68 were wounded.
Camp commander Lt. Col. Joaquin Cimarra Flores' said eight of the 12 American military advisers assigned to the training camp were on the base when the attack began at 1:30 a.m. None of them were reported injured.
"The United States has 55 military advisers in El Salvador to train troops in counterinsurgency tactics. The advisers are not permitted to engage in combat, but one Salvador soldier said he believed the advisers might have returned fire during the attack.
"I am sure they fired back because one has to defend himself," said the soldier, who asked not to be named. The men denied the Americans fired back.
"They did not participate in the fighting. They only secured their positions in the building." he said.
Gen. Adalofo Blangon, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, also was at the base at the time of the attack, but he declined to speak with reporters.
Flores said the guerrillas attacked the camp from the south, the southeast and the west using artillery, machine guns and rifles.
Several soldiers burned to death when mortar fire struck their barracks, he said.
"They never entered the compound. They only penetrated the peripheral defense." Flores said.
Flores said troops found 30 pounds of explosives the rebels planned to use to blow up the compound.
In a special broadcast over their clandestine Radio Venceremos yesterday morning, the rebels claimed to have burned the training center.
But military spokesmen said only a few buildings, including the section where the American advisers had their offices, were seriously damaged by fires sparked by mortar fire.
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