Salvador fighting forms second front for first time

October 14, 1982

US-trained troops stormed two rebel-held villages, but guerrillas captured three towns in another province as the civil war split into two fronts for the first time, according to Army and rebel reports. A rebel spokesmen said guerrillas began a new offensive, marking the anniversary of the Oct. 15, 1979, ''young officers'' coup that toppled the rightist regime of Gen. Carlos Humberto Romero and triggered the civil war.