1.
GV Highway One deserted
0.06

2.
GV & SV Government troops fire mortars (7 shots)
0.29

3.
SV Officer through undergrowth
0.32

4.
GV Highway One
0.37

5.
LV Smoke from burning village
0.42

6.
GV & SV refugees along Highway One (4 shots)
1.09

7.
GV & SV Troops patrol around Pagoda
1.18

8.
LV Troops firing mortars as wounded take cover (2 shots)
1.36

9.
SV Stretchers unloaded from ambulance
1.39

10.
SV Refugees and injured helped into ambulance (2 shots)
1.47

11.
SV Wounded soldier crawls along ground
1.52

12.
SV Stretcher loaded into ambulance and ambulance away (2 shots)
2.06



Initials AE/12.57 AE/1.17



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: In a flare-up of fighting in the Khmer Republic, communist forces, struck only eight miles (13 kms) from Phnom Penh early on Sunday (16 September) -- the closest since of the United States bombing halt on 15 August. they attacked Prek Thom village, sending refugees streaming into the capital.

The Khmer High Command reported that Communist fighters moved into the village astride the vital Highway One, which leads to easter provinces and into South Vietnam.

Hundreds of refugees, travelling by motor-cycle, truck, bicycle and on foot -- some carrying furniture and other leading their livestock -- crowded along Highway One to the capital. Phnom Penh's population is already swollen to more than twice its pre-war level of half-a-million people.

One refuges said he saw several hundred Communists armed with rifles and rockets moving into the village. The occupation was not seen as a threat to Phnom Penh as the Bassac River separates the capital from the area.

Government reinforcements were sent in and heavy fighting continued. There were no details of casualties.