300 leave Khmer Rouge and defect to Thailand

About 300 Khmer Rouge guerrillas and their families defected from combat units in Cambodia to Thailand, military sources said.

They asked permission to join resistance forces loyal to Prince Norodom Sihanouk, head of the new Cambodian coalition government-in-exile, the sources said. Resistance factions of Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge, and former Premier Son Sann agreed, when they formed the coalition in June, that each would maintain separate guerrilla forces to oppose Vietnamese occupation troops in Cambodia.