Murder bid by rocket

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33426, 7 January 1974, Page 11

Murder bid by rocket

’ (N.Z. Press ,-tssri. —Cout/right; PHNOM PENH. January 6. ; Khmer Rouge terror- 1 ists attempted to kill the Cambodian Army Commander (Major - General < Sosthene Fernandez) at dawn today by firing two anti-tank rockets at his I house in Phnom Penh. 1 General Fernandez was unhurt, but a guard was ' wounded. < The terrorists fired two? rockets at the house from? about 100 yards away, but they went over the house and : exploded in a tree. , At the same time, two gre- ;, nades were fired at the!: ’house, one of them landing’; ■'in the front yard, wounding! one of the guards. Sentries around the General’s house said they had (seen some people gathering near a food seller’s stall, but ’did not pay any attention (until the rockets were fired. The terrorists escaped in a :three-wheeled taxi. They left; behind sacks containing six ; rockets, some grenades, and a rocket launcher.

It was the second terrorist incident in. Phnom Penh in < two days. On Saturday a girl I agent on a motor-cycle I hurled two grenades at an Army post, killing one and wounding ten. I About 100 commando < agents are thought to have < been infiltrated into the city ! recently. A Cambodian Government official, meanwhile, has claimed that the Khmer Rouge rebels have agreed to exploratory peace talks. Other authorities said the claim was inspired by a oneman gesture with no official status and little chance of|f success. Dr Mok Lean, a member of , the National Ministry of Con- ( cord, designed to foster re- j [conciliation with the rebels, ’said President Lon Nol had ( asked him to renew contact ( (with the Communist-led! ; guerrillas. “But in the meantime, a. West German businessman in ' Vientiane, Laos, has made? : contact with Communist re-|' presentatives of China. North ! Vietnam and the Pathet Lao , and he told me that he had . ’made a breakthrough,’’ Dr; Lean said. American diplomats in Phnom Penh tended to dis-. miss Dr Lean’s claim of a| 'breakthrough, saying he? [probably was making only i low-level contact that would 1 ’lead to nothing substantial. In Saigon, the South Viet-; Siamese Command said that,, ’heavy fighting broke out 25 miles north of the capital be-' 'tween Government troops; and about 300 North Viet- ' namese and Viet Cong sol-) diers who attacked a bat-i tation near the town of Kiem’ Tam. The command listed ' ts: losses at four dead and 13, .wounded, claiming the Com-'

munists lost 32 killed. Negotiations between the South Vietnamese Government and the Viet Cong over a prisoner exchange have stalled in dispute. The Saigon delegate accused the Viet Cong of making “absurd demands.”

About 60 miles north-west of Saigon, five Government troops and a civilian were killed, and 20 were wounded Ten homes were destroyed. In the latest fighting in Binn Dinh province, on the central coast, the command claimed 29 Viet Cong dead.