Atlacatl Battalion

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The Atlacatl Battalion was a rapid response, counter-insurgency battalion created in 1980 by the U.S. military at the U.S. School of the Americas and responsible for some of the most infamous incidents of the civil war in El Salvador. The Atlacatl Battalion's first trained Salvadoran soldiers arrived back in El Salvador in 1981. As a result of this U.S. training and their notorious brutality, the Atlacatl Battalion had a close relationship with U.S. military advisors and U.S. Special Forces operating in El Salvador during the civil war of the the 1980s. The Atlacatl Battalion was responsible for some of the most horrendous atrocities of the war in El Salvador including the El Mozote Massacre of December 1981 and the brutal assassination of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter. Under the terms of the 1992 Salvadoran peace accords that ended the eleven year conflict, the Atlacatl battalion was disbanded.