and 24th Regiments, were to break down into small units and conduct political activity among the population. This tactic was to create the impression that the local forces were everywhere throughout the Delta and would support PAVN political activity. The troops had instructions to limit the use of heavy weapons and thus gain more credibility as local guerrillas. Local South Vietnamese forces responded effectively to this campaign and the PAVN achieved no significant gains. The PAVN's Military Region 3 included the nine provinces of the lower Delta. Kiên Giang, on the Cambodian border. was the northernmost. The Delta capital and the headquarters for the ARVN IV Corps was at Cần Thơ in the central Mekong province of Phong Dinh. The PAVN's only relatively secure and uncontested base area in the Delta was in MR 3, the U Minh Forest, a vast mangrove swamp and forest extending across the border of Kiên Giang and An Xuyên Provinces on the coast of the Gulf of Thailand. As elsewhere in the Delta, activity in MR 3 increased sharply on 23 January. Well over half of the incidents reported were harassments and attacks by fire against South Vietnamese posts. In the northwest, the PAVN 1st Division sent troops across the frontier from Cambodia with the apparent purpose of having them in position for the kickoff of operations at the time of the ceasefire. Documents captured in sharp fighting near Hà Tiên in northwestern Kiên Giang were identified as belonging to a battalion of the 52nd Regiment, 1st Division and subsequent interrogation of a captured prisoner confirmed the battalion's presence as well as those of the regimental headquarters and a second battalion. The prisoner described the regiment's low morale; many of the soldiers had recently been released from military hospitals. and the general health or the unit was low. The regiment's mission was to occupy the Hà Tiên area and show the VC flag prior to the ceasefire. Combined operations employing the Republic of Vietnam Air Force and the Rangers pushed the 52nd back into Cambodia. Air strikes killed more than 70 soldiers of the 52nd and ground fighting accounted for at least 15 more. The PAVN's 44th Sapper Regiment, also subordinate to the 1st Division, began operations in the Seven Mountains of Châu Đốc on 15 January with attacks by fire against South Vietnamese posts. The 44th moved into the Seven Mountains near Tri