Cambodian Civil War: Khmer Rouge rebels intensify assaults on Cambodian government positions, forcing their retreat from Kompong Thmar and nearby Ba Ray.

The Cambodian Civil War was a civil war in Cambodia fought between the Communist Party of Kampuchea against the government of the Kingdom of Cambodia and, after October 1970, the Khmer Republic, which had succeeded the kingdom after a coup. The conflict was part of the Second Indochina War (1955–1975).

Khmer Rouge is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), and by extension to Democratic Kampuchea, which ruled the country between 1975 and 1979. The name was coined in the 1960s by Norodom Sihanouk to describe his country's heterogeneous, communist-led dissidents, with whom he allied after the 1970 Cambodian coup d'état.

Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Mainland Southeast Asia. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline along the Gulf of Thailand in the southwest. It spans an area of 181,035 square kilometres, dominated by a low-lying plain and the confluence of the Mekong river and Tonlé Sap, Southeast Asia's largest lake. It is dominated by a tropical climate. Cambodia has a population of about 17 million people, the majority of which are ethnically Khmer. Its capital and most populous city is Phnom Penh, followed by Siem Reap and Battambang.