U.S. Says Salvadoran Rebels Executed 3 GIs : Central America: Officials say the Americans were shot after their helicopter was brought down.

U.S. officials Thursday accused Salvadoran guerrillas of executing three American crewmen who were aboard an Army helicopter that landed in El Salvador after being hit by gunfire Wednesday.

The officials made the accusation privately after the leftist rebels said that they shot down the helicopter and claimed that the crewmen died as it crashed.

Publicly, Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams stopped short of accusing the rebels of executing the crewmen but said that the Pentagon has found “serious inconsistencies” in the guerrillas’ claims that the Americans died in a crash. Evidence indicates that the helicopter made a “controlled landing” after being hit and that the servicemen were killed by gunshots in the head, he said.

However, confusion over the circumstances increased as the Associated Press interviewed a peasant who said that, when he came upon the site, he found one crewman dead and two others severely injured. The peasant, Silvio Mendez, said that he and the rebels helped the two victims limp away from the wreckage. The soldiers received no medical attention and died as a result, Mendez said, although he added that he was not present when they died.

The downing of the American aircraft came less than a week after the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front announced that it would discontinue offensive actions against the Salvadoran government and participate in negotiations for a cease-fire. The rebels said they did not know the aircraft belonged to the United States when they began shooting.

The guerrilla attack could boost the Salvadoran military’s appeal for increased U.S. aid. However, there was no immediate indication that the incident would prompt the Bush Administration to request more than the $42.5 million already earmarked by Congress.

The U.S. helicopter was returning to Honduras after transporting U.S. troops inside El Salvador, the Pentagon said. It was flying above the Pan American Highway, which is not considered a zone of conflict, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

“This FMLN action comes at a time when the FMLN claims to be interested in reaching agreements to end the war,” said Boucher. “Once again, the guerrillas’ actions belie their words. This time, it is Americans, not Salvadorans, who are victims of the FMLN’s hypocrisy.”

The Salvadoran military found the downed helicopter and the three Americans’ bodies after the helicopter failed to arrive at its base in Honduras, the Pentagon said. No American military or diplomatic officials were with the Salvadoran troops at the time of the discovery.

The Pentagon dispatched a forensics team Thursday morning to El Salvador, and officials said Thursday that, pending that team’s investigation, the U.S. government could not publicly conclude that the killings were the deliberate work of the FMLN.

Privately, however, the officials said there is little doubt that the FMLN is to blame for the deaths. They said that local eyewitnesses have told U.S. investigators that the soldiers were alive when they landed and were shot subsequently.

Mendez, who lives about 200 yards from the crash site, told AP that when he arrived at the site about a half-hour after the crash, two survivors were bleeding from the neck. One pleaded for water, he said.

The guerrillas, according to Mendez, moved the victims, then set fire to the helicopter. He said that the two men died about an hour later because the rebels “did not provide medical attention” or first aid of any kind. The two died while he was gone, on rebel orders, to look for water and a truck, he said.

Meanwhile, Col. Miguel Borja Gomez, director of the Military Hospital in San Salvador, told AP that the victims’ bodies had numerous bullet wounds. Journalists were not being allowed into the morgue at the request of the U.S. Embassy, he said.

On Wednesday the rebels, announcing the downing of the copter, identified the dead pilot as David Scott and named the co-pilot only as Pickett and the flight engineer as Dawson. On Thursday, the Pentagon would say only that the victims were from the U.S. Army’s 4th Battalion of the 228th Aviation Regiment and were based in Panama. The Pentagon said identifications were being withheld until survivors could be notified.

The UH-1 helicopter, armed with an M-60 machine gun, was traveling about 50 feet above the ground, the Pentagon said, in an effort to evade the Soviet-made SA-14 missiles that the guerrillas use.

In November and December, two Salvadoran warplanes were shot down by guerrillas armed with SA-14s provided by Nicaragua’s Sandinista-controlled army. Because of those downings, Williams said, the U.S. armed forces recently issued orders directing U.S. aircraft to fly low, which makes it difficult for the SA-14 to focus on its target. However, the lower flight pattern also makes the aircraft more vulnerable to small-arms fire.

The three Americans were armed at the time their craft was downed, but Williams said there was no evidence that they used their weapons.

In its 1991 budget, Congress limited U.S. military aid to El Salvador to half of the $85 million that the Bush Administration sought. At the same time, the legislature told Bush that he could restore aid to $85 million if he could certify to Congress that the guerrillas are continuing to receive significant arms shipments from outside the country, or that the Salvadoran government is endangered by the guerrillas’ operations.

On Wednesday, the day of the shooting, Nicaragua’s military announced the arrest of four of its officers on charges that they had sold 28 of the SA-14s to the FMLN. The arrests came after Nicaragua had denied repeated U.S. charges that the Sandinista-led military was supplying the leftist rebels in El Salvador with arms.