World Notes Honduras

Assaults into Nicaragua by anti-Sandinista guerrillas have in the past provoked occasional Nicaraguan shelling of border towns in neighboring Honduras, where the U.S.-backed contras of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force maintain their base camps. The most recent raid, late last week, drew an unusually heavy Nicaraguan mortar barrage near the town of Arenales; one Honduran soldier was killed and eight others were wounded. In response, the Honduran air force dispatched, for the first time, some of its U.S.-made F-86 jet fighters to attack Nicaraguan positions. The Hondurans said the aircraft fired on Sandinista troop concentrations and shot down a Nicaraguan helicopter.

Honduran President Roberto Suazo Cordova, after hearing of the attack, recalled his ambassador from Managua and put the armed forces on general alert along the 500-mile border with Nicaragua. Having conferred with U.S. Ambassador John Ferch, Suazo Cordova said the army would "use all necessary measures to repel the aggression." Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra called the Honduran attack an "invasion" and blamed it on the U.S.