World IN BRIEF : CAMBODIA : Protesters Assault Khmer Rouge Chief

A mob of screaming people shouting “kill, kill, kill,” surged past sympathetic police into a villa at Phnom Penh today and beat Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan with rocks, sticks and their fists. Witnesses said Khieu Samphan was seen lying on the floor of a small bedroom, his face covered in blood. He was awake, and the extent of his injuries was not immediately known. The government ordered in armored personnel carriers to evacuate him and said he and his entourage would again leave the country. The attack was part of a demonstration by more than 10,000 people shortly after Khieu Samphan ended his exile and returned to the capital to take part in a U.N.-backed plan to end 13 years of civil war. He was a key architect of the Khmer Rouge rule of 1975-78, during which the fanatic Communists killed hundreds of thousands of people in trying to turn the country into a vast rural commune.