Bomb Attack On Minister

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31880, 7 January 1969, Page 11

Bomb Attack On Minister

" ' (N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) SAIGON, January 6. A Viet Cong motor-cyclist today lobbed a plastic bomb into a car in which was the South Vietnamese Minister of Education (Dr Le Minh Tri) who was critically injured.

Dr Tri’s chauffeur i was killed and a guard < seriously injured. ] The explosion sent flames sprouting from both sides of I the car and blew a hole i ‘through the roof. 1 Dr Tri, who is 43, has been i Minister of Education for only < three months. 1 His car was slowing down‘l as it approached traffic lights:, at a busy crossroads in Saigon, about 500 yards from i the Presidential Palace, when:, [the motor-cyclist hurled the j explosive. • The bomb-thrower escaped ,< I in the busy traffic. it i Dr Tri and his guard werej

pulled from the wreckage and taken to hospital, but the charred body of the driver could not be extricated for nearly half an hour. Saigon has been relatively free from terrorist incidents during the last two weeks, but bomb disposal squads still answer about a dozen calls a day, often to remove grenade booby traps from beneath the wheels of parked vehicles. South Vietnamese troops and the police in Saigon are on full alert, in case of a possible Viet Cong attack, and 31 ammunition and weapons dumps have been found round The capital during the last ■month.