News In Brief
| Washington
Salvadorean effort to halt death squads satisfies US
The Reagan administration said Wednesday that it was satisfied that the government of El Salvador was making progress against right-wing death squads. State Department spokesman John Hughes cited the Dec. 19 arrest of Capt. Eduardo Alfonso Avila in connection with the deaths of two US land-reform advisers and the transfer abroad of two military officials as evidence of progress.
Salvadorean military sources confirmed that two former directors of police intelligence operations - organizations the United States has linked to human rights abuses - are among the five Army officers being sent abroad in response to US pressure to crack down on the death squads. But a ranking officer in El Salvador's Defense Ministry said it would be ''inconceivable'' for the Army to meet all US demands to purge itself of links to death squads.
