The Atlacatl Battalion, a former Salvadoran Army unit, was a rapid-response, counter-insurgency battalion created in 1980 at the U.S. Army's School of the Americas, then located in Panama. It was implicated in some of the most infamous incidents of the Salvadoran Civil War. It was named for Atlacatl, a legendary figure from Salvadoran history.
The Atlacatl Battalion's first trained Salvadoran soldiers arrived back in El Salvador in 1981. The Battalion was trained at Ft. Bragg, NC by US Special Forces and the 2nd Battalion, 505th Infantry of the 82nd ABN. As a result of their U.S. training, the Battalion had a close relationship with U.S. military advisors and Special Forces operating in El Salvador during the civil war of the 1980s.[1] The Battalion carried out some of the most horrific atrocities of the war, including the El Mozote Massacre of December 1981 and the notoriously brutal assassination of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter in November 1989.[2]
The Battalion was disbanded under the terms of the 1992 Salvadoran peace accords that ended the eleven-year conflict.