Reprisal raids by Saigon jets

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33513, 19 April 1974, Page 11

Reprisal raids by Saigon jets

i.\.Z P..A -Reuter—Copyright) SAIGON, April 18. Government jets yesterday flew 50 bombing missions around the Communist-held base at Dak To in the Central Highlands close to the border with Laos and Cambodia, military' sources said today.

ihe raids were reprisal, strikes for the overrunning i earlier this week of a hill-;

top camp south of Pleiku, the main population centre in the Highlands. The sources said there; had been intelligence reports of long-range 130 mm. field guns being hauled to Dak To.. bringing them within range; of the outer defences of! iKontum — Pleiku’s neighbouring city to the north — and this was why Dak To;

.was chosen for the retaliation raids. Pilots reported two trucks

■and 112 military installations ■and bunker complexes destroyed around the North I Vietnamese base, which was captured in the 1972 oflfenisive. The Saigon Command ■spokesman reported continuing fighting near Hill 71l in Jthe Central Highlands. He said 47 Communist troops and eight Government troops were killed and ; eight Government troops wounded in a clash yesterday on the road about one mile south of the hill. The assault on Hill 71l left 506 North Vietnamese dead, 61 Government troops killed and 76 wounded and an undisclosed number missing, according to Command figures. . Meanwhile, the Interna- . tional Control Commission ' has run into further difficulties in its effort to investiJgate cease-fire violations. A regular meeting of the four I.C.C.S. chief delegates ' yesterday failed to get underwav after a dispute over Tong Le Chan Camp, which fell to North Vietnamese' forces lasi week after a 4llday siege. Last month, the I.C.C.S. achieved a break-through by travelling to Cai Lay in the ■Mekong Delta to investigate a complaint from both sides that a mortar shell killed or 'wounded nearly 100 children. But the investigation was stopped after a stone-throw-ling incident and has not been resumed.