Populated areas shelled

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33775, 22 February 1975, Page 15

Populated areas shelled

(By

GEORGE ESPER

! of the Associated Press, through

N.Z.P.A.)

SAIGON, February 20.

Communist-led forces shelled population centres, blew up bridges and struck at a regional headquarters of the international peace-keeping force today, killing or wounding more than 60 people, mostly civilians, the Saigon Command reported.

The assault on the regional peace-keeping headquarters, in My Tho, 35 miles south of Saigon, destroyed a water purification .plant, a warehouse and a garage, and wounded a Vietnamese guard, the command said. I In Cambodia. Government ; troops recaptured Mong j Russet, a rice depot town 160 [miles north-west of Phnom [ Penh which rebel forces overran on Monday, an Army source said. '

At the same time, 10 navy boats landed about 300 Government troops on Peam Raing Island, 40 miles ’southeast of the capital, where isolated remnants of an earlier relief force have been cut off for the last three days, field reports said. Fighting was reported heavy but there was no immediate word on

1 casualties. , Outside Phnom Penh, rebel | gunners rocketed the airport, .[killing three people and iwounding six, police said. A ,! fuel shortage at a transmitter : station on the city’s outskirts { interrupted Phnom Penh’s (telegranh and telephone links [with the outside world for ! the third successive day, (officials said. Hours of trans- ; mission were reduced to : seven hours on Wednesday [and to two hours today. : | Neak Luong, the only Gov-; emment strongpoint on the: > Mekong, was in “desperate”! (trouble, according to military! , officers. ■! A U.P.I. correspondent, [who visited the town yester- ! day, reported that rebel mor- ■ Stars were hitting at the rate [of one a minute, and four ' U.S. aircraft bringing in supplies were hit. Heavy fighting was reported north-west, south and ! south-east of Phnom Penh, although Government forces were said to be holding their; lines.

I Military sources said that ■ the Government has given in after a month-long argument > to U.S. demands that it aban- ; don Kompong Seila. a bell sieged base 69 miles southj west of Phnom Penh.

Government commanders argued against giving up the base because it had withstood and eight-month siege, but U.S. officials said that Kompong Seila was strategically worthless, and its 6000-man garrison would be better employed elsewhere.