SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador -- Government warjets dropped 500-pound bombs in an unsuccessful attempt to retake a strategically located rebel-held town, killing at least 18 civilians and wounding 31 others, witnesses said.
The government assault on Tenancingo, 17 miles northeast of San Salvador, had still not driven guerrillas from the town by Monday. Tenancingo is along a strategic corridor used to supply a major stronghold of the leftist rebels.
Witnesses who returned from Tenancingo said they saw the bodies of at least five children, four women and nine men killed by government bombing of the town Sunday.
U.S.-supplied A-37 'Dragonfly' warjets dropped more than a dozen 500-pound bombs on Tenancingo, aided by spotter planes that fired white phosphorous rockets to mark sites to bomb, the witnesses said.
Doctors in the town of Cojutepeque, about 5 miles south of Tenancingo, said they were treating 31 civilians wounded in the fighting, including seven who suffered 'fractures by explosions' in the bombing.
Journalists who walked some 10 miles to reach the town said they saw 42 soldiers wounded in the arms and legs, apparently from the bombing.
The wounded soldiers were held prisoner by guerrillas at the local church, as were 30 unharmed soldiers, the journalists said. They counted the bodies of 10 dead soldiers, they added.
Tenancingo, a town of 3,000, lies along a supply route the guerrillas use to bring provisions from the south and east to Guazapa Volcano, a rebel stronghold 20 miles north of San Salvador.
In early June, guerrillas attacked Tenancingo and killed and wounded 20 soldiers, prompting more than 1,000 people to flee the town.
One of El Salvador's major rebel groups, the People's Revolutionary Army, Sunday marked the eighth anniversary of the death of a guerrilla fighter by attacking nine towns in six provinces.
The group's radio station, Venceremos, claimed 178 soldiers were killed or wounded in the attacks in honor of Rafael Arce Zablah, whose name is used by the rebels' main brigade.
