GUERRILLAS INTENSIFY ATTACKS IN NICARAGUA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504680021-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: May 16, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504680021-9
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WASHINGTON POST
16 May 1986
Guerrillas Intensify
Attacks in Nicaragua
a"
S Tto The Special Washington Post
JINOTEGA, Nicaragua-Anti-
Sandinista guerrillas have been car-
rying on a new offensive in recent
months that has brought fighting to
regions that have experienced little
consistent combat for about a year
and has brought the number of an-
tigovernment fighters operating
inside Nicaragua back to 1984 lev-
els.
A Sandinista military officer in-
terviewed here said that in the last
two months his troops engaged in
67 battles with the rebels, losing 87
soldiers dead or wounded, while the
guerrillas lost 135. He said the reb-
els staged three ambushes and at-
tacked two agricultural coopera-
tives and a settlement camp, burn-
ing houses.
Guerrilla leaders, analysts in Ma-
nagua and U.S. State Department
sources said the resurgence stems
from the recent delivery of supplies
to the counterrevolutionaries, or
contras, as they are known here,
and their determination to prove
themselves a viable military force.
"The contras are under the gun
to demonstrate that they can get
into Nicaragua and do some dam-
age, take on the EPS," or Sandinista
Popular Army, said a State Depart-
ment official who is knowledgeable
about the guerrillas. "They're un-
der pressure from Honduras to get
into Nicaragua and fight," said the
official, who was interviewed by
telephone.
The new infiltration of contras
has coincided with a congressional
debate over whether to provide
them $100 million in economic and
military aid. It also comes a few
months after widespread dissatis-
faction about the lack of military
activity by the contras surfaced
among some of their supporters in
Washington.
With the exception of a brief
comeback last August, when the
contras inflicted heavy casualties
during attacks in the provinces of
Esteli and Chontales, there was lit-
tie war activity throughout 1985.
The only visibly permanent contra
presence has been the Jorge Salazar
Regional Command, a force of sev-
eral thousand in the central prov-
inces of Boaco and Chontales.
"It was quiet most of the last year
but now the contras are back in
about as much force as in 1984,"
said the Nicaraguan -officer here,
who is a ranking military official in
northern Jinotega province. He was
referring to a lengthy contra offen-
sive during the electoral campaign
that autumn.
According to Sandinista military
officers in the region and military
analysts in Managua, the contras
mounted a series of small raids in
March and began a heavy infiltra-
tion in early April along a two-
pronged or three-pronged route
running south from the mountain-
ous border regions into the more
populated Matagalpa, Jinotega and
Chontales provinces.
Sandinista officers estimated that
nearly 4,000 contras infiltrated,
adding to the already encamped
forces of the Jorge Salazar unit.
Adolfo Calero, leader of the rebel
coalition known as the United Ni-
caraguan Opposition, said about
15,000 are inside Nicaragua. A U.S.
official estimated 8,000 to 10,000.
We managed to supply our men
beginning in February, and now
they are fighting," Calera, said in a
phone interview. "We are on a sus-
tained and continuous struggle," he
said, contending that his men do not
rely on the base camps known to
operate just inside Honduras.
Top Honduran leaders blocked
supplies to the anti-Sandinista guer-
rillas into the beginning of this year.
U.S. officials said that since then,
almost all of $27 million appropri-
ated as "humanitarian aid" has been
spent.
Fighting picked up soon after the
first infiltrations in northern re-
gions close to the Honduran border
and, more recently, in Boaco and
Chontales provinces.
In a May Day speech, Nicaraguan
President Daniel Ortega said that
combat, ambushes and attacks left
1,811 dead or wounded on both
sides in the first four months of this
year.
Nicaragua's Defense Ministry is
reporting stepped-up ambushes and
attacks in towns, farms and reset-
tlement camps, including an am-
bush last week in Chontales prov-
ince in which 10 persons, including
seven civilians, were killed.
While most of the estimated 1,-
600 contras recently infiltrated into
Jinotega had retreated into more
remote regions of the province, said
the Sandinista officer here, about
500 were still concentrated as close
as 30 miles from the provincial cap-
ital of Jinotega.
"Our casualties have been
heavy," the officer said from his
command post outside of town.
"There are contras as close as
there," he said, indicating a hilltop
several miles away. "We are making
them move constantly; they fight
for 10 days and then retreat."
He said the Sandinista incursion
into Honduras to attack a contra
base camp in late March, an attack
that was widely publicized by the
Reagan administration, was partly
aimed at forcing a withdrawal of
recently infiltrated contras. He said
destroying base camps cuts guer-
rilla supply lines, demoralizing
forces and spurring their retreat.
Just after the incursion, he said,
several hundred contras retreated
into the more remote mountain re-
gion.
But contra officials and some
U.S. officials said the tactic may
have backfired. Those sources said
contra military chief Enrioue Ber-
mudez's response to the incursion
was to send more forces into Nic-
aragua to prove that the strategy
would not succeed in bottling up
contras at the base camps.
[Costa Rica decided Thursday to
grant asylum to Nicaraguan rebel
leader Eden Pastora, leader of the
Democratic Revolutionary Alliance
(ARDE), and about 450 of his fight-
ers, if they come unarmed and un-
der the auspices of the Red Cross,
Reuter reported.
[Miguel Carmona, director gen-
eral of the Costa Rican Red Cross,
said the decision was reached at a
meeting of government officials.
Last Saturday, the ARDE leader-
ship and most of the fighters joined
forces, against Pastora's wishes,
with the Nicaraguan Democratic
Force.]
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Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504680021-9
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504680021-9
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Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504680021-9