FIGHTING IN LAOS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28999, 14 September 1959, Page 11

FIGHTING IN LAOS

Rebel Attack On Fort

(Rec. 11 p.m.) VIENTIANE, September 13

Two companies of pro-Com-munist rebels are attacking the besieged fort at Muongson, in Western Sam Neua, according to reports reaching Vientiane. The garrison broadcast an urgent appeal for help on Friday saying it was under attack from three battalions of rebels and troops from Communist Vietnam. The fort, from which nothing was heard since the broadcast appeal, is being manned by about two companies of loyal troops—about the same number as the force reported to be making the attack. The commander of the northern army, Brigadier-General Amkha, told a press conference that loyal forces had suffered 240 casualties in the Sam Neua region in the last month. They included 40 dead and 36 wounded, with the rest missing or taken prisoner.

He also revealed that a Vietminh soldier hafl been captured by Royal forces, and was now being brought through about 50 miles of jungle to Sam Neau. If the prisoner was found to be North Vietnamese, he would be the first captured in the two-month-old guerrilla war—and a prize the pro-Western Government had been seeking to support its claims of North Vietnamese intervention. Two Vietminh soldiers captured last month were later found to be deserters. In New York the Foreign Minister of Laos, Mr Khamphan Panya, said that any open warfare in his country “would inflame the whole area." He said he was “very satisfied with the action up to now of the United Nations.”

The Security Council last week appointed a sub-committee to investigate charges of aggression by Communist North Vietnam. The committee left for Laos last night.