Operation Desert Rat
| Operation Desert Rat | |||||||||
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| Part of Laotian Civil War; Vietnam War | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Kingdom of LaosSupported by  United States
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 North Vietnam
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| Units involved | |||||||||
Groupement Mobile 33 21st Special Operations Squadron
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Two battalions | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| Regimental-strength | 50,000 total; exact numbers opposing RLF unknown | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Unknown | 121 killed 39 supply trucks destroyed |
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Operation Desert Rat (16 February – 3 April 1971) was a diversionary attack by a Laotian irregular regiment upon the crucial communist supply line, the Ho Chi Minh trail. Carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency sponsored Groupement Mobile 33, the Desert Rat offensive struck the rear of the 50,000 North Vietnamese troops combating Operation Lam Son 719 beginning on 16 February 1971. With 16 daily tactical air sorties and airborne forward air controllers available, the Desert Rat guerrillas used their hilltop position near Moung Phine to spot targets for bombing. It also raided, skirmishing 110 times, killing 121 communist soldiers, and sowing 1,500 mines along North Vietnamese lines of communication. On 20 March, it was assaulted by two communist battalions. The major threat of Lam Son 719 ended, leaving the communists free to deal with the minor one of Desert Rat. However, the guerrillas split into three columns and exfiltrated by 3 April 1971. The Royal Lao Government had lost control of the strategic Bolovens Plateau to the communist invaders.
The Ho Chi Minh Trail was the key to the Second Indochina War. North Vietnam's People's Army of Vietnam depended on that logistics route to defeat South Vietnam. As a result, during 1969 and 1970, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) urged its guerrilla battalions to raid the Trail to disrupt or interdict the supply lines. Eventually, the South Vietnamese launched Operation Lam Son 719 on 8 February 1971 in a failed incursion to cut the Trail. The South Vietnamese failure to sever those lines of communications did not end ground assaults on the Trail. Indeed, Operation Desert Rat would be such.
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