FOUR FRONTS

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33370, 31 October 1973, Page 17

FOUR FRONTS

Cambodia fighting (N. Z.P. A. -Reuter—Copyright) PHNOM PENH, Oct. 30. Government troops engaged Communist-led insurgents on at least four fronts around Phnom Penh last night and today, with infantry and armoured vehicles attempting to clear Highway No. 5 of rebel troops. Two separate operations are under way to clear the supply route from Phnom Penh to the fertile Battambang Province to the northwest. Fighting is also reported around the small provincial capital of Vihear Suor, 12 miles north-east of Phnom Penh. There, a Government column, supported by naval elements, overcame insurgent opposition and linked up with the defenders of Vihear Suor. The column, slogging through flooded marshlands, had been trying to reach Vihear Suor from the west for several weeks. In South Vietnam, Communist and Government forces have lost more than 40 killed in new clashes as the “rice war” in the southern delta provinces continued unabated. In the last week there have been many small-scale battles and terrorist attacks against farming villages throughout the delta as Government forces have sought to keep Saigon supplied with rice and to prevent it from falling into Viet Cong hands.