Khmer Rouge claims hit on Hanoi H.Q.

Press, 14 December 1985, Page 10

Khmer Rouge claims hit on Hanoi H.Q.

Bangkok Khmer Rouge guerrillas said yesterday that they had launched an attack on the Vietnamese military headquarters in western Kampuchea in which 175 people were killed, including several of Hanoi’s commanders and a Soviet adviser. Khmer Rouge radio said that 80 people had been wounded in the attack on Sunday night > against Siem Reap, about 310 km from Phnom Penh. The radio said that Khmer Rouge forces had hit at six targets in the city, including the Vietnamese

NZPA-AFP

headquarters for western Kampuchea and the Soviet advisers’ residence. There was no independent confirmation of the attack, the bloodiest claimed by the Khmer Rouge since Vietnamese troops invaded their country in December, 1978, to install a pro-Hanoi government in Phnom Penh. In Peking Reuters reported that the Kampuchean anti-Vietnamese coalition leaders, Khieu Samphan and Sonn Sap, had left the Chinese capital yesterday after China pledged to give them a “New Year present” of arms. ’ The Chinese Foreign Min-

istry said that the two leaders, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the United Nations-recognised guerrilla coalition, were heading for Kampuchea. The coalition’s President, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, had remained in his Peking home, a Ministry spokesman said.

Prince Sihanouk said in Peking on Tuesday that China had given each of the three coalition groups a secret list of arms and ammunition supplies it would start giving them in January. “It’s a kind of New Year gift,” he said. , • ;