TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- The Nicaraguan army shelled four border villages inside Honduras Thursday, with no immediate reports of casualties, Tegucigalpa radio stations reported.
The Nicaraguan government denied the reports, saying U.S.-supported guerrillas carried out the attack to help justify a direct military invasion of Nicaragua.
The border villages of San Antonio, El Jicaro, Matapalos and Alauca, all belonging to the municipality of Aluaca, some 9 miles from the Nicaraguan border, came under fire from Sandinista artillery, the radio reports said.
The barrage began just after dawn, the reports said, without mentioning any casualties.
A truck driver who travelled from Aluaca to the city of Danli, 30 miles north of the Nicaraguan border, told one radio station that the artillery fire had come from the Nicaraguan side of the border.
'We left there fast when we heard the shelling,' said the truck driver, who covers the route between the border and Danli.
The Honduran army has not confirmed the reports.
'We neither deny it nor confirm it,' a Honduran army official said, adding that an official response would be released later.
The Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry denied Sandinista troops attacked the four towns.
'The Nicaraguan government categorically and energetically rejects these accusations and alerts international public opinion and the people and government of Honduras about the falsehood of these reports,' the ministry statement said.
'These events seem to indicate that the perpetrators of said attack are mercenary forces in the service of the U.S. government, which have been given heavy arms and artillery by said government.
Manuel Espinoza, spokesman for Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, told United Press International that the attacks are 'a provocation from the United States in order to attack us.'
Nicaragua has been accused by its neighbors Costa Rica and Honduras, both U.S. allies, of increasing cross-border attacks in recent weeks, hunting guerrillas who operate out of both countries.