Another Wave Of Attack On Saigon Feared

Police sealed off several streets in this battered capital tonight amidst widespread rumours that the Vietcong will launch a second wave of attacks against the city within the next two days.

Barbed wire barricades were rolled across avenues and police patrolled key areas with rifles at the ready.

An American military spokesman here said tonight that there were still several hundred Vietcong guerrillas scattered throughout Saigon, and North of the city there was “quite a conglomeration of enemy forces.”

He said, the situation in the city was under control. He did not think reinforcements could slip into the city now without anyone knowing.

The American military command reported tonight that Vietcong units last night launched a rocket and mortar attack on the 25th US Infantry base camp at Tay Ninh city, about 60 miles Northwest of Saigon.

North Vietnamese today continued to defy US efforts to dislodge them from the Southern sector of Hue’s old Citadel with ground and air attacks, a US spokesman said here.

The communists, holding half the Citadel’s West Wall and the whole of the South Wall, were resisting strongly, he said.

In a five-hour clash six miles Northwest of Hue, the Communists lost 56 men as US forces attacked them with artillery and rockets. The North Vietnamese, well armed with automatic weapons, killed three Americans and wounded 14, the spokesman said.

Far to the North, around Khe Sanh camp, giant B-52 bombers struck five time in 18 hours yesterday and today against North Vietnamese. These air strikes have been stepped up since the North Vietnamese cut off all land routes to the base, overrunning a support camp at Lang Vei. — (Reuter, AFP)