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| 1981, Jan |
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| After losing six leaders in a kidnap-assassination plot, the FDR, under Guillermo Ungo, set up a government-in-exile. During the same month the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), which had formed the previous summer as a coalition of guerrilla groups, launched the “Final Offensive.” The offensive failed, but the guerrilla movement remained strong, in spite of massive military aid from the U.S. for government forces. By the mid-1980s the number of guerrillas had risen to over 10,000. | 1 |
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| Jan. 17 |
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| Alarmed by the successes of the FMLN offensive, outgoing U.S. president Jimmy Carter sent a $5 million military aid package to El Salvador and leased the government several attack helicopters. Later, Pres. Ronald Reagan increased that amount by $25 million for 1981, and doubled it in subsequent years. | 2 |
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| Dec |
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| The U.S.-trained Atlacatl army battalion massacred 794 men, women, and children in the village of El Mozote. | 3 |
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