ABSTRACT
The Target of Operation COBBLE was the single Malayan Communist Party District of Segamat, which contained some twenty predominantly Chinese villages and estate labour lines. The total population of the District was about 37,000 of whom just over half were Chinese. The Selumpur branch ran its 'parallel hierarchy' amongst 4,800 Chinese who worked mainly on smallholdings in the western part of the district and consisted of 20 guerrillas. The population in the combined areas of the Bukit Siput and Tenang Branches was under 7,000, of whom 3,876 were Chinese. Based on the prospects offered by the agents, Special Branch in December selected their killing grounds. In the Selumpur Branch the aim was to plan ambushes on advance precise information in the smallholdings, into which the Tambang people crossed the river to work. The aim was to draw the guerrillas in as close as possible to the villages themselves to be ambushed on the perimeter.
