BANGKOK, Thailand -- Vietnam has sent a fresh battalion of 600 troops into combat with Thai soldiers near the Thai-Cambodian border, Thailand's naval commander said Friday.
Vietnamese and Thai troops have been battling in Thailand's southeastern Trat province since late last month when Hanoi's forces crossed into Thai territory in pursuit of Cambodian guerrillas.
Adm. Nipon Sirithorn, Thailand's naval commander, said the situation could lead to outright war if the Vietnamese do not leave Thai territory.
Hanoi's forces have resisted repeated Thai attempts to force them back across the border into Cambodia and have set up a temporary base about 1 mile inside Thailand, military sources said in Bangkok.
Nipon said eight more Vietnamese bodies were found inside Thailand, raising the casualty toll for Hanoi's troops to at least 16, with scores more believed wounded.
A Thai spokesman said earlier eight Vietnamese had been killed in air strikes by U.S.-built F-5E fighters and artillery shelling in the area 170 miles southeast of Bangkok.
A Thai military spokesman said six Thai soldiers were killed and 16 injured in the clashes.
Nipon said the Vietnamese had brought in a battalion of up to 600 fresh troops from neighboring Cambodia to fight Thai troops.
'If we don't try to push them back, they will move farther until they take over the district or, if possible, the whole province,' he said. 'Therefore, we have to push them back at all costs.
'If they persist, then we will go to war,' he said.
A Thai military spokesman in Trat province said Friday that Thai troops were closing in on the main force of Vietnamese intruders and hoped soon to force them back into Cambodia.
The spokesman said in a telephone interview that despite the fighting, Thai troops had been making good progress toward expelling the remainder of up to 1,200 Vietnamese who invaded Thailand in late April.
'Thai troops have moved closer to the Vietnamese stronghold,' the spokesman said.
Vietnam maintains about 160,000 occupation troops in Cambodia, which it conquered in early 1979. Hanoi then installed the Heng Samrin administration in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh.
The Vietnamese and their Cambodian allies are battling some 60,000 Chinese-armed Khmer guerrillas, recognized as the legitimate government of Cambodia by the United Nations and many non-communist nations.
Hanoi's 1984-85 dry season offensive against the rebels, which is now winding down after about six months of fighting, succeeded in capturing all of the major guerrilla bases along the Thai-Cambodian border and dealing a serious blow to the resistance movement.
