The World - News from Feb. 14, 1988

Six provinces and part of San Salvador were without electricity as the result of a stepped-up campaign by leftist rebels to sabotage El Salvador’s power network. Members of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front destroyed five high-tension electrical pylons that serve the capital as part of their campaign against the “war economy of the regime,” of U.S.-backed President Jose Napoleon Duarte, rebel sources said. The government last month announced a program known as “Operation Kilowatt” to prevent rebel sabotage of the nation’s electrical network. The program employs about 3,000 soldiers who patrol main highways and areas where towers, substations and hydroelectric plants are located in search of rebel saboteurs.