Salvador Offensive Moves Into Suburbs; Over 150 Dead in Heavy Rebel Fighting

Government troops fired on leftist guerrillas from helicopter gunships in the suburbs of San Salvador today in their attempt to defeat a rebel offensive that left at least 150 dead in the heaviest fighting of the 10-year-old civil war.

Sporadic bursts of machine-gun and mortar fire echoed through the city as rebels dug into positions and the government tried to rout them.

Rightist President Alfredo Cristiani, whose U.S.-backed government had been holding peace talks with the guerrillas until last Wednesday, declared a state of siege Sunday and the military imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew.

The Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrillas started the operation with attacks on Cristiani’s official and private residences Saturday night, but the president was not harmed.

Among the dead was an American, identified as Christopher Babcock of Washington state, a teacher at the American School in San Salvador, who was hit in the head by a grenade fragment.

An FMLN spokesman, Arnaldo Ramos, said in a television interview that the offensive began because “the government has presented proposals that demand surrender” and because of an Oct. 31 bomb attack in which 10 people were killed at a leftist union headquarters.

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the number of dead in the offensive may be as high as 300, including civilians, guerrillas and soldiers, with more than 300 wounded.

A Reuters photographer saw at least five military helicopters firing into the streets in the eastern suburb of Soyapango today, scene of some of the heaviest fighting.

Reports of fighting outside the capital were sketchy, but the guerrillas were said to have attacked army barracks throughout the country and military sources said fighting continued in several areas.

The United States, which gives El Salvador about $1 million a day, blamed Nicaragua, Cuba and unidentified Soviet Bloc countries for aiding the attacks.

But presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said that the Salvadoran government seemed to have the crisis under control and that U.S. involvement in the fighting was “not anticipated.”