Word: laotians
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...terrorist technique was becoming monotonously familiar: well-trained Communist bands from North Viet Nam came out of hiding after midnight to attack isolated Laotian army outposts, retiring before dawn to let Laotian Communist groups of the Pathet Lao continue the fighting in daylight. This device hardly deceived anyone-everyone knew that Laos' little war is sparked and sponsored by outsiders-but it kept up appearances...
Waiting for October. The tough Laotian army paratroops around Samneua are in good spirits, despite low pay and meager supplies; in recent weeks they have brought in 50 prisoners and killed 200 rebels in difficult jungle warfare. In general, however, Laos' 25,000-man army is poorly trained and must fight piecemeal over large parts of the country. New Communist attacks in four other Laotian provinces last week were obviously designed to spread the defenses even thinner. Some Laotian leaders concede that
Time for Anti-Thaw. Fact is, as Peking well knows, that the U.S. has no bases in Laos and U.S. "troops" there consist of 70 men supervising the supply of light World War II U.S. weapons to the royal Laotian army, plus 100 army officers on inactive duty assigned to a French military training mission...
...Laotian capital of Vientiane, Phoui ordered a roundup of top Laotian Communists, including the biggest of them all, Red Prince Souphanouvong, nephew of Laos' ailing, 74-year-old king. The royal Laotian army, though hampered by a communications system that in forward jungle areas consists of runners carrying messages in cleft sticks, slowly succeeded in reconquering most of the lost villages. Early last week Vientiane reported that the bulk of the Communist forces had apparently withdrawn, leaving behind 1,000 men "to conduct political activity and prepare for the next action by Communist troops...
Militarily, the conflict in Laos was strictly small bore. Why, then, had Red China wheeled up such heavy political artillery? The minimum Communist ambition may be to frighten Phoui into accepting return of the international control commission and readmitting the Laotian Reds into his government. But this seemed hardly worth a fuss that might queer Khrushchev's trip to the U.S.-unless, as some British diplomats speculate, it was Mao's way of reminding Khrushchev that Red China does not want any thaw in U.S.-Russian relations. The U.S. State Department, however, implicitly accused Moscow of complicity...