ARANYAPRATHET, Thailand -- Thai troops supported by U.S.-built bombers and artillery Wednesday attacked up to 1,200 Vietnamese soldiers dug into a hill inside Thailand and seized partial control of it, the military said.
Thai Marine and Ranger units were trying to widen a foothold on the hill gained in fighting late Tuesday, a Thai military spokesman said.
'We were able to seize some of the hill and the fighting went on sporadically,' he said. 'We found lodges and bunkers, many Vietnamese corpses in the area and a lot of ammunition for the AK-47 automatic rifle.'
Lightly armed Cambodian rebels of the communist Khmer Rouge, meanwhile, were striking at Vietnamese support troops massed at the rear of the battle zone and just inside the Cambodian border, military sources said.
There were no immediate casualty reports.
Between 800 and 1,200 Vietnamese troops dug into the hilltop in the Bantad Mountains -- about one-half mile inside Thailand -- after crossing into Trat Province late last month in pursuit of Cambodian rebels.
The Vietnamese have moved Soviet-built tanks and long-range artillery to positions inside Cambodia 3 miles from the area to support the ground troops, the Thai military said.
Cambodian rebels, backed by China and fighting since 1979 to end Vietnam's occupation of Cambodia, often seek temporary shelter in Thailand. Vietnamese troops have crossed the border repeatedly in search of the guerrillas.
The latest Vietnamese thrust is one of the largest to date and was launched as Hanoi winds down a dry-season offensive against rebels operating along the Thai-Cambodian border. The guerrillas have lost all of their major bases in the region.
Thai troops on May 4 began moving to push the Vietnamese back into Cambodia, but their progress has been slowed by rough terrain and land mines sown by the intruders.
A military source, speaking by telephone from the Thai border town of Aranyaprathet, 75 miles north of the fighting, said the Vietnamese apparently crossed the border in a bid to wipe out three Khmer Rouge divisions in the southeastern border area.
The communist Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia in 1975 and fled west to the mountain ranges along the border with Thailand when Vietnam invaded and installed the Heng Samrin regime.
The group is the largest of three resistance forces fighting the Vietnamese occupation.
