AMERICAN KILLED IN EL SALVADOR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000200730001-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 19, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 1, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000200730001-2
6/
American
Killed in
El Salvador
Attack on Base
Part of New Drive,
Guerrillas Say
WASHINGTON POST
1 April 1987
of the Farabundo Marti Nat..,nai
Liberation Front (FMLN), which
has been waging
against the U.S.-backed Salvadoran
government for seven years.
The Salvadoran Army said 35
7 By William Branigin
~/ Washington Pat Foreign Service
SAN SALVADOR, March 31-
Leftist guerrillas assaulted an Army
garrison early today, killing at least
42 Salvadoran soldiers and an
American military adviser in a ma-
jor attack that the rebels said was
the start of a new offensive.
The attack began shortly before
2 a.m. when a large guerrilla force
fired mortars and rockets at the 4th
Infantry Brigade headquarters at El
Paraiso, about 30 miles north of
here in the northern province of
Chalatenango.
The Salvadoran military said at
least 43 soldiers were killed in the
attack, including the U.S. military
adviser, the first killed in combat in
the civil war here. The U.S. Embas-
sy identified the adviser as Staff
Sgt. Gregory Fronius, 27, of
Painesville, Ohio, who had been at-
tached to the 7th Special Forces at
the U.S. Southern Command in
Panama. The Pentagon, which said
his hometown was Greensburg, Pa.,
said he was married and had one
child.
Fronius was awakened by the at-
tack, and was killed when he ran out
of his quarters near the base's Re-
gional Intelligence Center, U.S.
sources. said. They said he was
gunned down by small-arms fire,
then hit by a mortar round.
The Pentagon said Fronius had
grabbed his pesonal weapon and
was killed "while defending him-
self."
The number of U.S. military ad-
visers stationed in El Salvador is
kept at 55 or fewer.
The mountainous northern zone
near the border with Honduras has
long been considered a stronghold
soldiers were wounded in the as-
sault on the garrison, which was
manned by about 250 troops.
Armed forces chief Gen. Adolfo
Blandon, said the death toll could
rise, and witnesses said they be-
lieved the fighting caused consid-
erably more military casualties than
have been reported. Diplomatic
sources also said they believed the
Salvadoran military's casualty fig-
ures were low.
Reporters who visited the camp
today counted eight rebel dead.
It was not immediately known
precisely how many guerrillas were
involved in the attack. Estimates
ranged from 100 to more than 500.
Diplomatic sources said the assault
appeared to folllow rebel plans, cap-
tured earlier by the military, that
called for well organized attacks by
fewer than 100 highly trained sap-
pers following mortar and rocket
barrages.
Salvadoran Army officers said
that at least three guerrilla infil-
trators among the troops in the
garrison had been instrumental in
the success of the attack. They
said the rebels had carried satchel
charges and that some appeared to
have been killed by their own ex-
plosives.
"The attack illustrates the point
that it's very wrong to underes-
timate the capabilities of the
FMLN," a European diplomat said.
"They are not a finished force."
He added, "I don't think it sig-
nifies the beginnning of a grand of-
fensive or that the FMLN has re-
inforced its strength. It's just an-
other of those reminders that they
retain a military capability."
The Farabundo Marti National
Liberation Front, in a radio broad-
cast, said its attack had caused 600
military casualties. However, two
officers whom the rebels claimed to
have killed, the brigade commander
and his deputy, later spoke to re-
porters. The brigade commander,
Col. Gilberto Rubio, was slightly
wounded.
The rebel broadcast called the at-
tack "a strong blow to the armed
forces" and said it marked the start
of an offensive to capture power
from the government of President
Jose Napoleon Duarte.
According to the armed forces
press office, the fighting lasted
about three hours, ending at' 5 a.m.
Air Force planes and helicopter
gunships strafed the rebels to repel
the attack, the press office said.
Witnesses said two barracks, the
camp's command post, a motor pool
and an ammunition dump were
among the facilities destroyed.
Many of the dead soldiers' bodies
were charred, apparently from fires
that raged inside the camp.
The military press office said the
soldiers were killed "heroically de-
fending the installations." There
was no immediate explanation of
how the rebels, who are estimated
to number about 6,000 throughout
the country, were able to mass a
force estimated at several hundred
fighters and carry their attack in-
side the well defended camp.
The rebels said in their radio
broadcast today that they simulta-
neously carried out three other at-
tacks-in the provinces of Cuscut-
Ian, San Vicente and Usulutan.
There was no immediate word from
the military about the attacks.
U.S. Embassy spokesman Pen-
dleton Agnew said Fronius and his
partner were stationed at El
Paraiso to train Salvadoran infan-
trymen.
Pentagon spokesman Robert
Sims said in Washington that the
partner, who was not identified,
was not at the garrison when the
rebels attacked.
Agnew said the advisers' pres-
ence at El Paraiso was within guide-
lines established by Congress pro-
hibiting U.S. soldiers in El Salvador
from participating in combat. He
said El Paraiso was one of several
"carefully selected" garrisons out-
side San Salvador that the embassy
views as well enough defended to
make combat danger to advisers un-
likely.
"We can't preclude every possi-
bilty," Agnew said. guerrillas
It was the second time had crippled the El Paraiso garri-
son. A similar nighttime artillery at-
tack on Dec. 30, 1983, reduced it to
smoldering rubble and killed more
than 100 sleeping Salvadoran sol-
diers, whose bodies were hastily in-
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000200730001-2
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000200730001-2
terred in a mass grave. The base
was rebuilt with U.S. military aid
funds and U.S. officials said its pe-
rimeter defenses had been im-
proved.
In an interview in Managua, Nic-
aragua, a civilian leader of the guer-
rilla alliance, Ruben Zamora, said
the attack was part of a nationwide
military operation. He said the
guerrillas are changing their tactics
to deploy larger elite assault units
instead of small patrols.
Fronius was the second Amer-
ican to die in the country in a week.
The State Department said today
that pilot error apparently caused
the crash Thursday o a va oran
military helicopter that killed a CIA
employe near the town of ina-
meca.
Five other members of the U.S.
military are known to have been
killed in El Salvador since the start
of the civil war.
The first was Navy Lt. Cmdr. Al-
bert Schaufelberger III, 32. He was
shot in San Salvador May 25, 1983,
as he sat in a parked car, waiting for
a friend. A leftist rebel group
claimed responsibility. He headed a
six-man military group responsible
for managing U.S. aid to El Sal-
vador.
Four U.S. Marine guards were
killed June 19, 1985, in an attack on
an outdoor cafe in San Salvador.
Leftist guerillas claimed respon-
sibility.
Washington Post correspondent
Julia Preston in Managua and staff
writer Molly Moore in Washington
contributed to this report
W
HONDURAS
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000200730001-2