Contras Open New Front, Face Sandinista Gunships

U.S.-supported guerrillas are battling for a major foothold here in Nicaragua’s mountainous heartland, near a strategic government highway and within 100 miles of the national capital.

In a recent clash at Santo Domingo, the rebels proved their ability to mass troops and mount an attack in the center of the country, far from their sanctuaries across the Honduran border. But Nicaraguan government forces, using helicopter gunships, repelled the attackers and inflicted heavy casualties.

The battle of Santo Domingo typified the mixed results for the U.S.-backed guerrillas in their campaign to open a central Nicaraguan war front. So far, they have been able to accomplish little more than to show that they are here.

Military analysts say the rebels, known as contras, have three main objectives in the area:

--To establish a permanent and effective presence in the central provinces of Boaco and Chontales, thereby deepening their penetration in the country, gaining a new area of influence and boosting the credibility of their military challenge to the leftist Sandinista government.

--To divert Sandinista forces from northern Nicaragua, where government troop concentrations are making it difficult for the contras to move into the country from their Honduran sanctuaries.

--To interrupt cargo shipments, including Soviet military supplies to the Sandinistas, along the highway from the eastern river port of El Rama, in Zelaya province near the Caribbean Sea. The highway comes west into Chontales and Boaco and connects with the Pan American Highway near Managua, the national capital.

For the last few months, contras have infiltrated in and out of Chontales and Boaco provinces from the vast and sparsely populated hinterlands of Zelaya. In the mountainous cattle country of Boaco and Chontales, contras roam the rugged slopes and wooded ridges while Sandinista troops and local militia units guard the populated valleys.

There have been numerous minor clashes, but the one in Santo Domingo on Nov. 19 represented a special rebel effort.

A contra task force, estimated by Sandinista officers at more than 300 men, approached the town from the south at about 8:30 a.m. The rebels fanned out over a low ridge and moved into a draw just below a grain storage depot with six metal silos.

A company of Sandinista army troops that was stationed at the empty silos opened fire, and the battle of Santo Domingo began.

Helicopters Turned Tide

It apparently was a standoff until Nicaraguan army helicopters arrived at about 11 a.m. According to Sandinista officers, machine gun strafing and rocket fire from the helicopters helped pin the contras in the draw, then drove them back over the ridge.

Lt. Ludin Cruz, a Sandinista officer, stood near the silos one afternoon this week and pointed to the middle of the draw, where he said the contras had been turned back.

“They didn’t even get as far as those tall trees,” Cruz said. “They did practically no damage.”

He said two other contra task forces were preparing to attack Santo Domingo the same day from the other side but pulled out when the first task force failed.

The Sandinista army said 63 contras died in the attack. The contras reported their losses at 10 dead, but American television reporters who visited Santo Domingo soon after the fighting said they saw at least 20 guerrilla bodies.

This week, soldiers showed reporters a patch of freshly turned red earth and said about 30 of the contra dead were buried there.

Cruz said government casualties were two soldiers killed and three wounded.

Townspeople Wounded

Several townspeople were wounded and two houses were damaged at the edge of town near the grain silos. Civilian witnesses said the damage was done by Sandinista aircraft, and Cruz acknowledged that a “bad shot” by a rocket from a helicopter had damaged one of the houses.

MI-8 and MI-24 helicopter gunships were called to Santo Domingo for the clash. The Soviet-supplied choppers, used frequently since August, have given the Sandinistas a tough new edge in the war against the contras.

The gunships also have apparently introduced a new element of danger for civilians in war zones.

Carmela Vazquez said that during the battle of Santo Domingo, five people in her house--including two of her grandchildren--were wounded when two “bombs” sent bursts of shrapnel though the thin wooden siding.

“We were inside here, and we heard the noise--boom, boom,” said Vazquez, a stocky woman of 70 with a gray shock of hair and a bright pink dress.

A yellow house nearby had a gaping hole in the roof that neighbors said was caused by a rocket. No one was hurt in that house, but the residents closed it up and left town, the neighbors said.

There was no other apparent battle damage in Santo Domingo, a bustling cow town of 7,000 people. Two weeks after the contra attack, residents seemed relaxed and unafraid.

Cowboys and Horses

Cowboys strolled along the town’s main street, where horses were hitched to the porches of wood-sided buildings with corrugated metal roofs. Several olive-green army trucks were parked along the street, and dozens of troops lounged around the town.

The town is guarded by anti-guerrilla forces of an “irregular warfare battalion,” and by members of a local militia unit trained by the army.

The army has at least 13 irregular warfare battalions, but most are deployed in the northern part of the country in an attempt to close contra infiltration routes from Honduras. With the help of helicopters, they have severely limited contra movement across the border and through the northern area in the last three months.

That is crucial to the contras.

“If they can’t infiltrate successfully, concentrate and hit,” one military analyst said, “then they are going nowhere.”

The contras’ main unit in the middle of the country is the Jorge Salazar Regional Command, with an estimated 2,000 men. The military analyst said that about half of them are operating in Chontales and Boaco provinces, and the other half farther east in Zelaya, where they receive air-dropped supplies.

Army Still in North

The analyst said the contra activities so far have failed to draw significant government forces from the northern area or to hamper trucking on the highway from El Rama. On the other hand, he said, the concentration of Sandinista forces in the north has helped permit Boaco and Chontales to become “a target of opportunity” for the contras.

The analyst estimated that a total of 6,000 contras are operating in Nicaragua, while about 4,000 more are encamped in Honduras. Leaders of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the contra army, put their fighting forces at 17,000 and more.

The Nicaraguan army is believed to have at least 60,000 men, including mobilized reserves and militiamen.

Adolfo Calero, the top contra political leader, said Thursday in a telephone interview from Miami that rebel forces have plans for major new operations in the center of Nicaragua.

“You’ll be hearing from them very shortly,” he said.

He said the contras also will continue to put pressure on the road from El Rama. “Eventually,” he said, “we want to cut off that road, cut off Soviet military supplies to Managua.”

Calero also predicted that the contra activity in the center of the country ultimately will force Sandinistas guarding the northern border area to come south. “They will have to come down from the north,” he said.