9 March 1976

For clarification. The document in the last tweet is from a Khmer Rouge Office 870 document titled “Advice of 870 no 02-76 about bomb drop of American imperialist into Siem Reap province on 25/2/76”
https://t.co/Qglt8x8kV0

4. An accident at an ammunition depot that was exploited for political gain. @KRTribunal documents (unfortunately missing a key segment in the translation) might point to that: 6/6 https://t.co/Kbf35xiuvp

2. that the explosion was caused by a dissident faction, to which the demotion of Khmer Rouge Northern Zone Secretary Koy Thuon (photo, r) soon afterwards points.
3. A deliberate act to get sympathy and foreign aid (https://t.co/Pef1Rb4LJF) 5/6 https://t.co/AzlM11srKb

There are quite a few theories:

Ben Kiernan, a leading Khmer Rouge scholar raised in “The Pol Pot Regime” the possibility

1. of Vietnamese or Thai airstrikes as retaliation for recent border incidents, which (as he acknowledges) mostly lack evidence or were very minor. 4/6

Khmer Rouge FM Ieng Sary was quick to sell a more detailed story to the @UN but it is certain that their version of events is not true.

But what had happened? In his highly apologetic book from 2004, Khmer Rouge Deputy PM Khieu Samphan wrote that no one anticipated the event. 3/6 https://t.co/tHvF3rhhjv

The Thai Premier rejected this on Feb. 27th as “utterly groundless”, a US spokesmen described the charge as “ridiculous”.

Swedish diplomats who later inspected the site said the “damage could not definitely be established as either recent or caused by aerial attack” 2/6

The Khmer Rouge allege that a US F-111 jets, dropped bombs on the centre of the town of SiemReap in two raids, hours apart and then flew of towards Thailand. The attacks killed 15 people, wounded >40 and caused heavy damage to a hospital, a kindergarten and schools. 1/6

The US handes over Korat airbase to the Thai government. A-7 and F-4s from Korat flew strike missions during the secret bombing campaign against Cambodia. The base was also used for the Mayaguez operation (-> photo shows A-7D and F-111 on Alert Ramp in May 1975) https://t.co/lflNgnAk60