WAR IN CAMBODIA Communists Said To Be Re-forming

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32304, 23 May 1970, Page 11

WAR IN CAMBODIA Communists Said To Be Re-forming

(N.Z.P A..Reuter—Copyright)

WASHINGTON, May 22. The Communist military command in Cambodia is beginning to re-establish communications with its field units after being driven back and bombed by United States ground and air forces, the Defence Department disclosed in Washington today. A Pentagon spokesman said that Communist military and intelligence elements had been on the run since the early stages of the American-South Vietnamese thrust into Cambodia in search of Communist sanctuaries, and their headquarters were now beyond the 21.7-mile limit imposed by President Nixon on the operation.

“But,” the spokesman added, “they are poten : tial targets for air attacks, even there.” From Saigon it is reported that South Vietnamese forces have driven 20 miles into Cambodia along the coast of the Gulf of Siam, in a move to choke Communist supply lines.

Heavy fighting has been reported on another Cambodian battlefront, 50 miles from the

capital, Phnom Penh. United States headquarters reported yesterday that 217 Americans were killed in action in Vietnam and Cambodia last week. This was the

highest toll for any seven-day period in nine months, and included 77 Americans killed in the Cambodian theatre of operations.

I Military sources in Saigon say that the South Vietnam- ' ese infantrymen and arm- ' oured column is meeting little resistance in its thrust 20 miles deep Into Cambodia. 1 The column is reported to ' have advanced past the port ! of Kep and to have reached the outskirts of Kampot, 50 ! miles from Kompong Som, Cambodia’s largest port American and South Viet-

namese warships are patrolling the gulf in a blockade against Communist supply

vessels. An official communique issued in the Cambodian capital says that Cambodian forces have captured Tonle Bet, 50 miles north-east of

Phnom Penh, but field reports say that bitter fighting is continuing there. Correspondents at Tonle Bet say Cambodian forces, spear-

headed by mercenaries flown in from bases in South Vietnam, are trying to encircle the town on the east bank of the Mekong, in an effort to cut off a battalion of North Vietnamese dug in there. Cambodian forces recaptured Kompong Cham from the Communists last weekend. Mao Criticised The Soviet Union today scoffed at Chairman Mao Tsetung’s recent statement calling for an intensified struggle against “U.S. imperialism,” and blamed him for the expansion qf the Indo-China conflict. In a Chinese-language broadcast, Radio Moscow said that Chairman Mao had damaged the international revolutionary movement by splitting it with his policies against the Soviet Union. The radio said that Chairman Mao had long refused to co-operate with the Soviet Union in checking American aggression in Vietnam, and it added: “Had China formed a common front with other Socialist nations, and had Mao stopped being hostile to the Soviet Union, United States imperialism would not have dared to take aggressive measures.” '