Dry Season Siege

Artillery bombarded Phnom-Penh last week, inflicting the most serious damage on the capital in nearly four years of war. Taking advantage of the dry season, Khmer Rouge insurgents moved their forces to within 4 1/2 miles of the city and shelled it over a period of five days with captured U.S.-made 105-mm. howitzers. During the attacks, at least 1,200 of the 25-lb. shells rained upon the refugee-packed capital, demolishing flimsy makeshift huts and killing more than 100 civilians.

The howitzer bombardment followed five weeks of almost daily shellings by Soviet-made 122-mm. rockets --less powerful than the howitzer rounds but still terrifying because they fall randomly. After one rocket crashed into the courtyard of the Lycee Descartes, which was luckily empty of children at the time, the Lon Nol regime closed all schools and imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew.

With artillery and rocket attacks now almost daily occurrences, foreigners have begun to flee the city. British and Australian dependents have already departed. A gathering of French residents at their embassy's cultural center ended in fistfights over the limited supply of evacuation air tickets. Rumors that the insurgents had begun infiltrating the capital swept through the city's crowded slums, terrifying the populace.

The government has responded to the shellings by rushing a 1,400-man task force, backed by 25 armored personnel carriers, to the area southwest of the capital where they suspect the insurgents have stationed their artillery. The task force failed to find the howitzers. Military observers believe that the insurgents are merely lying low, waiting for the government forces to withdraw before resuming the attacks. Said a Western military expert: "Neither side is strong enough to win, or weak enough to lose." A sure loser, however, will be once graceful and tranquil Phnom-Penh. With seven months remaining in the dry season, the capital faces a long, painful siege.

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