Couple Hold 1,000 in El Salvador

A woman and an army deserter armed with an automatic rifle seized control of a school in the capital today and were holding about 1,000 students and teachers hostage, a top security official said.

Gen. Rinaldo Golcher, the treasury police chief, told reporters at the scene that the two are believed to be leftist guerrillas. There were no immediate reports of violence. Golcher said the couple took over the school at around 10:30 a.m. after dropping a bundle of propaganda leaflets from the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front guerrillas at the back entrance of the school.