The World : Thais Dislodge Viet Forces

Thailand claimed victory in a fierce, months-long campaign to dislodge Vietnamese troops from several strategic hills inside Thailand near the Cambodian border. An army spokesman said that more than 100 Vietnamese troops were killed in the campaign, begun April 17 in Chong Bok, a mountainous region where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia converge. Forty-five Thai soldiers were killed, he said. Thailand’s policy has been to largely ignore intrusions in relatively uninhabited areas like Chong Bok. But the Thai military, feeling the seizure was an attempt by Hanoi to expand its territorial grip in Southeast Asia, gave priority to the recapture of the border area.