Mr. Clinton will press Mr. Pastrana to complement the new military anti-narcotics offensive against those groups in the south with civilian aid programs to avert a refugee problem that could add fighters to the guerrilla ranks and spread the conflict to neighboring countries.

In addition, the killings of unarmed civilians by soldiers may only work to swell the guerrilla ranks.

After seeming initially to evade the crisis, Mr. Salinas highlighted what he called an essential difference between the impoverished guerrilla rank and file and the "professionals of violence" commanding them.

They said hundreds of new recruits between the ages of 16 and 20 had joined guerrilla ranks in the last eight years.

Seventeen-year-old Sadim said Tigers had routinely raided his school, taking boys out of classrooms to impress into the guerrilla ranks.

The Algerian army, recently formed from the guerrilla ranks of the FLN's Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN) was still geared towards asymmetric warfare, and had little heavy equipment.

It is already confronting a deepening economc crisis that many Salvadoran officials fear could drive peasants into the guerrilla ranks.

Some of the other former prisoners have filtered across the border to bolster the guerrilla ranks of Swapo, which has an internal political wing.

In many villages, it was the women who first rose up against Shining Path by hiding their young sons from forced recruitment into the guerrilla ranks.

Betrayal in guerrilla ranks was regarded as the most serious crime against the party and the punishment was normally death by execution.