Battle In Cambodia

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32381, 21 August 1970, Page 11

Battle In Cambodia

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) PHNOM PENH, August 20. An estimated 3000 North Vietnamese regular troops launched the heaviest attack of the Cambodian war early today, against the outer defences of Phnom Penh, a military spokesman in the capital reports, adding that casualties were heavy on both sides.

Three reinforced North Vietnamese battalions—a full regiment—attacked the village of Prek Tameak, nine miles north of Phnom Penh, just before dawn. Fighting continued into the day, and at mid-morning Communist troops and Cambodian defenders were engaged face to face, the spokesman said. “A number of troops on both sides have been killed, but I have no precise figures,” he went on.

There appears to be no immediate threat to the capital, however. The fighting is across the Mekong River, which is patrolled by South Vietnamese and Cambodian gunboats. The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong strategy in attacking Prek Tameak appears to be aimed at securing a foothold for a possible harassment of the capital later.

Cambodian aircraft are reported to ' have begun the systematic bombing of large Communist troop concentrations threatening Kompong Speu, 30 miles south-west of Phnom Penh.

A military spokesman In the capital said yesterday that Cambodian planes had bombed and strafed a village, killing an unknown number of civilians and Viet Cong.