During the American military involvement here, Hanoi used Laotian territory to ferry weapons to South Vietnamese Communists along what became known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Pavie was later named as French ambassador to Siam and continued to support French expeditions in Laotian territory and gave the territory its modern-day name of Laos.

They also conducted physical conditioning, to improve their physical fitness and stamina to undertake operations in the most extreme conditions on Laotian territory.

The United States provided logistical, aerial, and artillery support to the operation, but its ground forces were prohibited by law from entering Laotian territory.

LEAD: Laos accused Thailand of staging air and ground attacks against Laotian territory this week in a continuing border dispute between the two nations.

France reclaimed the Laotian territory during August 1945.

Most of them were shot down in bombing raids on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, along which the North Vietnamese resupplied Communist armies in the South through Laotian territory.

American officials said today that they thought that Mr. Copp and Ms. Long had strayed into Laotian territory "inadvertently."

Hanoi, lashing out at "Thai reactionary circles," backs Laotian charges that Thai troops are on Laotian territory and that some of them are engaged in illegal logging.

The RLG immediately protested the flying of the North Vietnamese flag on Laotian territory.