Salvador rebels say peasants bombed

Press, 9 March 1984, Page 6

Salvador rebels say peasants bombed

NZPA-AP San Salvador Salvadorean Leftist guerrillas said yesterday that the military had killed 10 civilians in one of the heaviest aerial attacks in months on a rebel-controlled area north of the capital. ■ The Army acknowledged a heavy week-end raid on the area, about 30km north of San Salvador, the capital, but said that it had been aimed at a large concentration of rebels and not the civilian population. The clandestine rebel Radio Farabundo Marti said that the Air Force had dropped 46 bombs and soldiers had fired rockets and mortars on three hamlets on the northern slope of the Guazqpa Volcano. It said that the attack had

destroyed cane and corn crops, killed 10 peasants and seriously wounded two others. A Defence Ministry spokesman said that the attacks might have been centred on the general area mentioned by the rebels. But he said that it was totally false that the fire had been directed at villages inhabited by civilians. The area is constantly subject to attacks by the Air Force and soldiers trying to keep rebels from massing there for assaults on the capital. Most Air Force officers say that it is considered a free-fire zone because all those living there either were guerrillas or their camp-followers.