Military Force
The military branch of the KPNLF was the Khmer People’s National Liberation Armed Forces (KPNLAF). Established originally in March 1979 by General Dien Del, it was commanded by Sak Sutsakhan from 1981-1992 (with the exception of some power struggles). However, in an individual unit the commander was relatively autonomous, therefore General Sak had the difficult job of coordinating the actions of each unit. This understandably led to a lot of confusion and relative ineffectiveness for large-scale battles. On the other hand, this organization reaped benefits in the form of greater flexibility and mobility of the armed forces.
Despite this military tendency to act in the form of individual unit attacks, occasionally the KPNLAF would join with other separatist forces to launch a large-scale assault on a specific target or area. For example, on March 28, 1986 the CGDK launched a successful raid on Battambang, Cambodia’s second largest city.
For the KPNLAF large-scale military actions were stopped after the Vietnamese dry season offensive in 1984-1985. These attacks were devastating, yet not completely debilitating. Even after the huge loss of approximately 30% of its men and material, the KPNLAF was still able to carry out guerrilla operations for the rest of its existence.
Read more about this topic: Khmer People's National Liberation Front
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