BANGKOK, Thailand More than 25 years after the Central Intelligence Agency declared its failed war in Laos was "a superb job," a recent bloody, cross-border attack has focused concern about the communist regime and its US-based enemies.

During America's expanding Vietnam War, the US bombed Laos with the equivalent of the total bombardment of Europe in World War Two though Laos is only the size of Utah.

The US Embassy in the capital, Vientiane, said, "From 1964 to 1973, the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic suffered protracted and intense ground battles, as well as some of the heaviest aerial bombardment in world history.

"It is estimated that during this period more than two million tons of ordnance fell on Lao territory."

Those US bombs continue to kill Lao men, women and children each year because a lot of the ordnance did not explode during the war, and instead burrowed into the dirt, booby-trapping much of Laos.

As a result of that legacy, Laos suspects the US and its allies of supporting anti-communist rebels who still hope to win America's lost war.

Washington and Bangkok deny any involvement, and insist they want to improve relations with the landlocked, hermit nation.

Fresh suspicion arose after a bloody, botched raid on July 3 by about 60 rebels, which left five attackers dead inside Laos, and 28 others captured in Thailand, from where the assault began.

The pre-dawn raid near Pakse, on the Mekong River close to the Thai frontier, began when attackers armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles seized Lao hostages, lowered the Lao flag, and raised their anti-communist resistance flag.

Lao government reinforcements counter-attacked, scattering the remaining rebels from the area, 300 miles southeast of Vientiane.

The leadership of the quixotic rebels remains as mysterious as the government of Laos, which rarely reveals information about its officials or policies.

Documents allegedly found at the scene linked the attackers to California-based, anti-communist Lao dissidents who demand Washington force Laos to embrace democracy.

The US Embassy in Bangkok, however, said, "There were no American citizens, or green card holders, among the people detained in relation to the border incident.

"Once that was determined, we had no further role in the issue. For that reason, there isn't anyone at the embassy who would be prepared to discuss the issue."

The one-year-old letter was allegedly on a Fresno-based United Lao Freedom Fighters letterhead, also called the United Lao Nation Resistance for Democracy in Laos.

The letter reportedly was signed by Soummachak Sayaseng, said to be the rebels' Lao United Army supreme commander.

The veracity of the letter, however, could not be immediately confirmed.

Thai media, meanwhile, said the raiders belonged to an obscure, anti-communist group called the Neutral Justice and Democratic Party.

The 28 men captured upon their return in Thailand included 11 who possessed Thai identification, though further police checks were continuing. Other rebels were said to be from Laos.

Vientiane immediately demanded extradition of the 28 detainees.

Bangkok, however, Thai authorities will put them on trial for illegal entry into Thailand and weapons possession.

The subsequent feud over extradition has further strained relations between Thailand and Laos.

Earlier, Laos blamed anti-government criminals for several recent unexplained bomb blasts in Vientiane and elsewhere.

Laotian Ambassador to Thailand Hiem Phommachamh said, "It is very difficult for anti-government people to operate inside Laos effectively because of our well-organized security system.

"We know for sure that there is no group that can operate inside Laos. It is those people who live in the United States who support them," the ambassador said.

On July 22, Chicago-based Hmong International Human Rights Watch's Executive Director, Xiong Chuhu, told United Nations representatives in Geneva, Switzerland:

"Right now, as I speak before you, the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, along with the help of the Vietnamese military, are carrying out heavy military attacks against Hmong civilians living in Xaysomboun special region, Xieng Khouang province, and Borikhamsay province killing thousands of Hmong people."

Chuhu added, "These renewed attacks have been going on since December 1, 1999, non-stop, but nothing is being done to halt this genocidal campaign."

The US State Department's 1999 Human Rights report, released earlier this year, said, "An organized Hmong insurgent group was responsible for occasional clashes with government troops. These exchanges reportedly were brutal on both sides."

But the State Department insisted, "There were no confirmed reports of politically motivated or other extrajudicial killings by government officials during the year."

It warned Laos "is an authoritarian, Communist, one-party state," and "there continue to be credible reports that some members of the security forces committed human rights abuses.

"The government's human rights record deteriorated in some aspects throughout the year, and serious problems remain."

The US Ambassador to Laos, Wendy Chamberlain, said in a 1998 speech, "The United States government is deeply opposed to any efforts by American citizens to violently overthrow a foreign government.

"This can only hurt innocent civilians, and poses no hope of creating a just society in Laos."

She said "things have changed in Laos, and changed for the better."

Chamberlain advised Lao-Americans, "The message here is that you have little to fear in returning to Laos as Americans...but expect to find it changed."

She added, "There are shopping mini-malls, private law firms, and even a five-star hotel next to the stadium.

"Youngsters wear Denver Broncos caps and Spice Girls T-shirts."

Stoking the intrigue is the CIA's former Lao military leader, General Vang Pao, who is now based in California.

No evidence has been produced linking Vang Pao to the latest raid.

But Vang Pao and other vocal, US-based Lao activists frequently warn the 250,000 Laotians who live in America that Vientiane must be overthrown, to stop their alleged slaughter of innocent Lao people.

In 1999, Vang Pao's nephew, Michael Vang, and another minority ethnic Hmong-American, Hua Ly, disappeared while visiting Laos.

Vang Pao demands democracy plus a figurehead monarchy for Laos, with the last king's eldest grandson, French-based Prince Soulivong Savang, 36, placed on the former throne.

Vang Pao is said to lead a Lao United Independent Front, and a Lao United Independent Army, comprised of thousands of anti-communist Lao dissidents.

During the Vietnam War, Vang Pao allegedly smuggled heroin while he worked for the CIA.

Much of that heroin was "ultimately for (American) GI addicts in Vietnam," according to Alfred McCoy's respected book, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia.

Vang Pao's US-based colleague Vang Pobzeb, of the United Lao Movement for Democracy, claims "massacres" and "ethnic cleansing" of Hmong and other anti-communists in Laos is continuing, totaling more than 300,000 killed in the past 25 years.

Pobzeb, who is also executive director of the Wisconsin-based Lao Human Rights Council, demands the US government stop alleged "Nazi-type crimes" and "genocide, war and chemical weapons" used by the Laotian government against its citizens.

Laos, meanwhile, denounces all such accusations as propaganda designed to inflame hatred against the government.

Distrust remains, however, because America and Laos are entwined in a terrible noose of history, as a result of the CIA's massive, 20-year-long role in manipulating the Hmong, and others, against Lao and North Vietnamese communist troops during the war.

In a document published in the CIA's Studies in Intelligence archive, Georgia University Professor of History, William M. Leary, wrote: "The largest paramilitary operations ever undertaken by the CIA took place in the small Southeast Asian kingdom of Laos.

Leary added, "Although the country eventually fell to the communists, the CIA remained proud of its accomplishments in Laos.

"As Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms later observed, 'This was a major operation for the Agency...it took specially qualified manpower, it was dangerous, it was difficult.'

"The CIA, he contended, did 'a superb job'," Leary quoted Helms as saying.

The CIA began in Laos in 1953 with "Operation Squaw," when President Dwight D. Eisenhower used its help to arrange US Air Force planes to assist French forces in their failed bid to stop communist insurgents in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, according to Leary.

After France lost Indochina, Laos became independent under a US-backed monarchy in 1954.

Communist Pathet Lao guerrillas, however, based themselves in the north.

"Although the country had little intrinsic value, its geographical position placed it in the center of the Cold War in Southeast Asia," Leary added.

"If Laos fell to the communists, Thailand might be next, according to the domino theory. And the collapse of Thailand would lead to communist domination of Southeast Asia and perhaps beyond."

Within a few years, the communist insurgency increased, so US Special Forces arrived in 1959.

One year later, a civil war split the nation between CIA-backed, rightwing General Phoumi Nosavan, who was based in the southern town of Savannakhet, against communist-supported paratroop commander Kong Le in the capital, Vientiane.

With help from the US and its ally Thailand, Phoumi seized Vientiane.

Kong Le, depending on Russian air support, retreated north to the Plain of Jars named for the ancient four-foot-high, jar-like receptacles dotting the flatlands.

The CIA, which had been training Thailand's border police, offered to lead Laos's Hmong tribesmen to fight the communists, in an effort to minimize American casualties, Leary added.

Eisenhower agreed.

The CIA's Hmong military leader was the aggressive and skilled Vang Pao.

In 1960, the US began arming and training Vang Pao's Hmong guerrillas.

After President John F. Kennedy was elected, the Vietnam War spread.

Thousands of communist North Vietnamese troops began arriving in northern Laos, mostly to protect their supply routes into US-backed South Vietnam.

So, in 1963, Kennedy and the CIA increased Vang Pao's rebel forces to 20,000 Hmong, to fight the combined North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao inside Laos, Leary added.

President Lyndon B. Johnson escalated the so-called "secret war in Laos" in 1965.

As a result, the CIA's use of Hmong tribesmen to fight the war, resulted in the death of a generation.

Though desperate for CIA-supported Hmong reinforcements, "a recruitment drive turned up only 300 replacements 30 percent were between the ages of 10 and 14, and 30 percent were 15 and 16, while the remaining 40 percent were all over 35. According to (senior USAID officer) 'Pop' Buell, those between those ages were all dead," Leary noted.

America responded to the losses with massive aerial bombardment, rising from 1965 through to the end of the war.

Today, the impoverished communist regime is financed in part by US taxpayers and other nations including its close allies China and Vietnam.

Various foreign governments hope to influence Laos's somnambulant politics, and exploit the thinly populated, lush, mountainous nation's natural resources.

US economic assistance to Laos, from all sources, totaled about 50 million US dollars during the past five years.