VIETNAM SEARCH Signs warn troops not to cross

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32524, 6 February 1971, Page 15

VIETNAM SEARCH Signs warn troops not to cross

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter— copyright) SAIGON, February 5. Thirty thousand American and South Vietnamese troops hunted nine elusive North Vietnamese regiments along the border of neutral Laos today—signs warned the Americans not to stray across the frontier. There were no reports of major battles. The 20,000 Communist regulars believed to be in the northwest corner of South Vietnam were either playing hide and seek in the jungle or employing the classic guerrilla tactic of melting away before a superior force.

The United States Command here broke a six-day news blackout yesterday to announce that just over 20,000 South Vie namese supported by 9000 American troops had begun to move to their positions near the Laotian border last Saturday.

First reports of American fatalities in the new operation, code-named "Dewey Canyon Two,” said that two soldiers were killed in an old minefield near the re-estab-lished former United States Marine base at Khe Sanh. In the only action of the day yesterday, helicopters of the American 101st Airborne Division spotted a North Vietnamese force 15 miles north-west of the Khe Sanh base. The gunships swooped in and killed five North Vietnamese, a command spokesman said.

But in spite of the absence of any major clashes, observers say that American and South Vietnamese forces at Khe Sanh, 425 miles north-north-west of Saigon can expect retaliation from the North Vietnamese soon, if no final political decision to move Saigon troops into Laos is taken. Though observers in Washington now have the impression that no thrust into Laos is expected, American offi-

cers engaged in the operation are apparently geared to back such a push by the South Vietnamese troops. Delays caused by political rethinking in Washington or by the wet, cold, monsoon weather will play into the hands of North Vietnamese

troops, Saigon observers believe.

i They point to Khe Sanh’s : well-remembered 77-day siege i in early 1968 when the base was pounded by uninterrup1 ted mortar and rocket attacks r from the surrounding hills. i American engineers have > now reopened Highway 9 to 5 Khe Sanh.

This is an old French-built road that extends across northern South Vietnam to the Mekong Valley in Laos, crossing on its way the myriad routings of the Ho Chi Minh supply trail, Hanoi’s line of infiltration into South Vietnam.

Near the spot where the North Vietnamese were killed yesterday, American 852 bombers blasted suspected infiltration routes. There was no let-up in similar strikes on the Ho Chi Minh trail across the border in Laos. Meanwhile, 19,500 South Vietnamese troops on two new operations in neighbouring Cambodia reported killing 69 North Vietnamese troops in a battle 19 miles east of the River Mekong ferry crossing town of Kompong Cham, 50 miles northeast of Phnom Penh. South Vietnamese troops lost seven killed and 28 wounded in the engagement, the South Vietnamese spokesman said.