Honduran Jets Hit Base in Nicaragua : Strike 5 Miles Across Border; First GIs Arrive

Jets of the Honduran air force raided a Sandinista military base about five miles inside Nicaragua on Thursday, firing rockets in retaliation for a reported Sandinista incursion into Honduras, according to U.S. officials in Washington and informed sources here.

The air strike took place while hundreds of U.S. soldiers arrived in Honduras as a show of force by the Reagan Administration, after Sandinista troops reportedly pursued Contra combatants across the Nicaraguan frontier into Honduras.

The Sandinistas have launched an offensive against the Contras near the rebels’ main base camps in Honduras, about 140 miles east of Tegucigalpa. They reportedly were targeting a Contra supply depot warehousing nearly 300,000 pounds of ammunition and other combat materials.

U.N. Meeting Asked

The Nicaraguan government has not publicly acknowledged that its troops are inside Honduras. President Daniel Ortega said in Managua before the air strike occurred that he would not withdraw Sandinista soldiers from Nicaraguan territory that the Sandinistas have recovered from the Contras.

Ortega called for a meeting of the U.N. Security Council to consider what he called “one more escalation of the war against Nicaragua.”

Honduran military officials acknowledged raiding Sandinista positions but denied that they struck targets inside Nicaragua. Col. Manuel Enrique Suarez Benavides told local reporters the attack was carried out against Sandinista soldiers who had crossed into Honduras.

The Hondurans used two U.S.-supplied F-5E jets and four French Super Mysteres in the attack in the Bocay River area, according to State Department and White House officials. They asserted that one of the Sandinistas’ Soviet-supplied MI-25 Hind helicopters was destroyed on the ground. But in Managua, where Defense Ministry officials confirmed that the raid had taken place, presidential spokesman Manuel Espinoza told reporters that it caused no damage or injuries.

The F-5E jets are the most advanced combat aircraft in Central America and Thursday was the first time they have been used in action in the region. Sources here said the jets were used as “lead planes” and that the rocketing was done from the Mysteres.

Honduras only recently received the F-5Es, the first of 12 the United States has agreed to supply to replace the aging Mysteres.

The aircraft reportedly took off from an air force base in La Ceiba, northern Honduras.

In Washington, a U.S. official with access to intelligence reports said, “We understand that the Hondurans bombed Amaka, which is a suspected location of the Sandinista command headquarters for this Bocay offensive.” Amaka is on the Bocay River about 5 miles south of the Honduran-Nicaraguan border.

The Contras have maintained bases in Honduras since the beginning of their 7-year war. In an effort to lower their profile in Honduras last year, they moved their headquarters east to San Andres de Bocay in a remote, jungled region of the country. The area is accessible only by air or foot from Honduras and Nicaragua.

Reports Sketchy

On Thursday, reports of fighting in the Bocay area were sketchy and sometimes conflicting. Honduran military and Contra sources said the Sandinistas held positions inside Honduras within about 5 miles of the border and continued firing artillery from Nicaragua into Honduras.

The Sandinista offensive reportedly began about a week ago against Contra positions on the east side of the Bocay River in Nicaragua. Early in the week, the Sandinistas pushed the rebels back into Honduras and began aiming for the supply depot, about 4 miles inside Honduras.

On Wednesday night, long after the U.S. government began protesting the incursion, the Honduran government issued a communique saying that “several hundred” Sandinistas had moved into Honduran territory with the support of artillery and bombs.

In Washington, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said that about 1,750 Contras, including 400 front-line combat troops, were holding their position at the Bocay base camp. “The rebels have sustained an unknown number of casualties and food is reportedly running low,” he said.

Fitzwater said that most of the Sandinista force inside Honduras was 2 to 3.5 miles east-southeast of the camp, with one Sandinista unit about 2.5 miles north of the camp.

‘Final Defensive Line’

“The insurgents have established a final defensive line approximately 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) south of the main (base) complex,” he said. “There was a supply dump and a hospital which were reportedly in some jeopardy.”

In the heat of the moment, Fitzwater confirmed that the Contras’ main base camp was well inside Honduras, the first time an official U.S. spokesman has acknowledged that open secret.

Contra sources said there are about 2,000 rebel combatants in the Bocay area and about 2,200 civilians, many of whom are family members of the fighters. One source who asked not to be identified, said that at least 2,000 other combatants are inside Honduras, several days’ walk to the west of Bocay.

Contra sources said that their troops had suffered at least five dead and 56 wounded in the fighting.

“We’re still fighting,” a Contra source said early Thursday. “They’ve never had us against the wall like this before. The (Sandinista) offensive last May was hard, but it was just practice compared to this.”

Contra Supply Route

The Sandinistas launched a large-scale offensive in the Bocay Valley area in May, 1987. With three rivers for transportation, the area has been the Contras’ chief overland supply route. It became a strategic area for the Contras once again last month after their CIA-run supply flights were cut off.

In the wake of the Sandinista offensive, President Reagan on Wednesday ordered 3,150 U.S. troops to Honduras for “emergency deployment exercises.”

The first battalion from the 82nd Airborne Division of Ft. Bragg, N.C., arrived at Palmerola Air Base early Thursday, about 170 miles west of the area of fighting. The other three battalions were arriving from the 82nd Airborne and from the 7th Light Infantry Division of Ft. Ord, Calif.

The U.S. troops are not to engage in combat, according to Maj. Gary Hovatter, a spokesman at Palmerola Air Base. Hovatter said it had not been decided where the U.S. troops would carry out their training exercises with Honduran troops.

The American troops were to spend the night on the base.

In Managua, President Ortega charged that the sending of American troops to Honduras violates international law.

On two previous occasions--in March and December of 1986--U.S. helicopters were used to ferry Honduran troops to border areas where the Hondurans were fighting Sandinista forces, but were under orders to remain at least 20 miles from the border. Similar orders remain in effect now, a Pentagon official said in Washington.

Times staff writer Doyle McManus contributed to this story from Washington.