CIA Reportedly Helping Contras Map Attacks on Nicaragua Targets

The CIA is helping the Nicaraguan contras with a plan to destroy dams, bridges, electrical substations, port facilities and other targets in Nicaragua this spring, the New York Times said Thursday.

Citing unidentified U.S. officials, the newspaper said that the CIA is supplying the rebels with detailed maps, blueprints and floor plans of some of the sites, many of them built by the Army Corps of Engineers or other U.S. agencies in the 1960s and 1970s, before the Sandinista revolution, the newspaper reported.

Rebel destruction of undefended telephone-relay stations, electrical switching stations and bridges would disrupt daily life in Nicaragua without directly harming civilians, the officials said.

Psychological Goal

While conceding that the raids may alienate citizens the contras might hope to win over, the officials said the attacks will show that the Sandinista government cannot control the areas involved--an important psychological goal of guerrilla warfare.

The report comes at a time when opposition is mounting in Congress to continuing military support for the rebels. Although the Senate voted Wednesday not to block release of the final $40 million of $100 million in contra aid approved last year, President Reagan’s request for $105 million in aid for fiscal 1988 appears headed for rough going in Congress.

The CIA is within the law in selecting military targets for the rebels, but one intelligence official noted that the strategy has risks.

“We’re skating pretty close to the kind of trouble we got into before,” the official said, referring to the CIA’s use of mercenaries to mine a Nicaraguan harbor in 1984. Disclosure of the mining prompted Congress to cut off military aid to the rebels for two years.

Electrical Tower Hit

One official said that so far the contras have destroyed only two or three CIA-targeted installations, including an electrical substation. On Monday the Nicaraguan government reported damage to an electrical tower in Managua by an explosion it blamed on a contra attack.

But other reports have asserted that the contras also have killed, wounded and terrorized civilians in attacks on health clinics, farm cooperatives and targets not on the CIA list, prompting displeasure from some U.S. officials.

Such reports of human rights abuses by the rebels have undercut their support in Nicaragua and in the United States, prompting the new CIA strategy--on the premise that attacks on dams and bridges would cause fewer civilian casualties, the officials said.