Report Of 1000 Viet Cong Killed

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31922, 25 February 1969, Page 17

Report Of 1000 Viet Cong Killed

<N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) I SAIGON, February 24. I Allied forces trying to crush the long awaited Viet Cong I offensive reported killing at least 1000 Viet Cong troops yesterday lin fighting that spread across South Vietnam, United Press I International reported.

At least 100 Americans were killed in the fighting and Saigon was shelled for the second consecutive night. “We do believe that this is their offensive,” an official spokesman at United States Headquarters said last night almost 24 hours after the first shells exploded in a wave of attacks that hit more than 100 cities and allied bases. “We do think there will be more shelling and ground attacks.” The American spokesman predicted the offensive “will be a grade ‘A’ fiasco” for the

Communists and will prob- , ably end before the week is over. 1 He added: “We’ll have to I wait a day or two and then we’ll know whether this will be a big thing or not.” Da Nang, South Vietnam’s ’ second largest city, was ‘ under a 24-hour curfew and i Saigon was braced for more ; rocket barrages. At dusk yesterday, three more rockets thudded into Saigon, killing at least six people and wounding 22 others. Six people were killed and at least 10 wounded in the opening rocket attacks which began about 2 a.m. yesterday. Most of the injuries yesterday occurred when a rocket landed in a hamlet across the

Saigon River, authorities said.

Last night, one rocket landed barely 100 yards behind the United States Embassy and only a few blocks from the residence of the United States Ambassador (Mr Ellsworth Bunker). It struck a small building housing an export firm but none of the 11 employees inside was hurt.

One blast brought squads of marines rushing to the Embassy, which was occupied briefly by Communist troops at the beginning of the Tet offensive a year ago.

Another rocket fired last night landed less than 50 yards from the Rex officers’ quarters for United States troops and only a few feet from the Rex Theatre jammed with people. Officers said at least 500 Americans were inside the Rex.

The new round of Communist rocket attacks in South Vietnam might draw a warning from United States delegates to the Paris peace talks, the Associated Press reported from Paris.

Allied sources, in close touch with Washington, die not rule this out today as re ports of widespread attack; poured in from South Vietnam.

Officials said any decisior to call a secret meeting with North Vietnam’s peace talks envoys to warn against an upsurge in fighting would not be made public before such an encounter.

United States diplomats have delivered similar protests to the North Vietnamese during the course of more than nine months of Paris discussions on the Vietnam war.

Meantime, for allied envoys involved in the talks the rocket attacks came as no surprise. “We were rather expecting it,” one source commented.

United States and South Vietnamese negotiators had been expecting it as a companion piece to the intense Communist diplomatic effort to enhance the status of the National Liberation Front at the peace talks, the Associated Press said.