News In Brief

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.