Rebels Say Salvador Attack Was Aimed at U.S. Military Advisers

Leftist guerrillas said Friday that their principal goal in attacking an army training center Thursday was to kill or capture U.S. military advisers.

The guerrillas failed to do either in the attack, but they vowed, in a radio broadcast, to continue targeting U.S. military personnel. A statement issued in the name of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front said in part:

“We are determined to fight a war against the North American interventionists who are directing the war in our country, and we have decided to take the war to every part and every situation where there are Americans. In this operation at the Armed Forces Training Center, the principal objective was the annihilation or capture of the . . . U.S. military advisers there. . . . “

James Williams, a U.S. Embassy spokesman, said there were five Americans at the center at the time of the attack but that none were harmed.

According to Salvadoran military officials, there are usually about a dozen U.S. trainers at the center, which is situated near the coastal city of La Union and was expanded last year with about $1 million in U.S. funds.

About 2,100 people were at the center, including 1,750 recruits, most of whom were asleep when the attack took place about 1:30 a.m., the officials said.

The attack was the guerrillas’ largest in nearly a year. The officials said that 42 Salvadoran soldiers were killed and 72 wounded. They put the guerrilla dead at 10. The guerrilla broadcast said the army suffered 235 casualties.

Williams, the embassy spokesman, said none of the Americans at the center fired their weapons in the two-hour attack. Salvadoran Col. Emilio Ponce, chief of operations, said the Americans stayed in their barracks and refused to leave until assured in English by the U.S. commander that it was safe.

U.S. military advisers are under orders not to go into areas where there is likely to be combat and not to use their weapons unless forced to defend themselves.

The guerrillas said they intend to search out U.S. military personnel rather than equipment.

“When we talk about a blow to North American imperialism,” the broadcast said, “we mean to its men and not to its machines or its technology, because it is the men and their morality and the cause they defend that determines who wins or who loses the war.”