PHNOM PENH: Thai and Cambodian soldiers exchanged rocket and small arms fire on a disputed stretch of their border on Friday, the latest flare-up in a long-running feud over a 900-year-old Hindu temple.Both sides accused each other of firing first in a clash lasting nearly an hour at Eagle Field, near the Preah Vihear temple, which was at the centre of a military stand-off between the Southeast Asian neighbours last year.There were no reports of wounded or dead. Thai and Cambodian military commanders on the border agreed to meet at midday to avoid further violence. General Srey Doek, Cambodia's commander at the temple, said a Thai patrol crossed into Cambodian territory and opened fire on his men. "The Thais fired rockets and rifles at us, and we responded in the same way," he told. Both sides agreed a ceasefire after their border commanders spoke by radio. In Bangkok, Thai officials denied their troops had trod on Cambodian soil and accused the other side of shooting first. "This was just a misunderstanding," Thai army chief Anupong Paochinda said.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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