Posted on 04/28/2003 2:24:22 PM PDT by miltonim
Gunmen attack Thai military outposts, killing four
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Unidentified men armed with assault rifles attacked two military outposts in Thailand's predominantly Muslim south Monday, killing at least four soldiers and wounding three others, officials said.
There was confusion about the identity of the attackers. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra suggested they were Islamic militants based in neighboring Malaysia, but Defense Minister Gen. Thammarak Isarangura na Ayuthaya described them as common criminals.
Thammarak said the men attacked garrisons in Yala and Narathiwat provinces simultaneously at about 3:30 a.m. (2030 GMT).
One group of attackers opened fire on marines in the Sukhirin district of Narathiwat province, sparking a fire fight that left four soldiers dead and two others wounded, he said.
Narathiwat Governor Thira Rojanapornphan told reporters that an initial investigation showed that about 15 men armed with pistols and AK-47 rifles stormed the marine camp, where 24 marines were sleeping.
"They opened fire and killed four marines and took away 14 M-16s,'' Thira said. "This group of people was well trained in using arms.''
A second group of gunmen attacked a Thai army outpost in Yala province's Thantho district, wounding one soldier and stealing 16 M-16 assault rifles.
Thammarak said the attack was likely in retaliation for government efforts to crack down on illegal businesses, and denied that it was carried out by Muslim separatists once active in the area.
But Thaksin told reporters separately that the attackers may be a group of people who sneaked in from Malaysia "to create confusion'' in Thailand so as to "get credit and ask for financial support from Middle Eastern countries.''
He said intelligence sources had warned officials in the south about a group of 30 people sneaking in from Malaysia.
He said the group also had a hand in the killing Saturday of two plainclothes police officers in Narathiwat, about 1,140 kilometers (700 miles) south of Bangkok.
About 1,000 people beat to death the two policemen after they had been detained by villagers as suspicious persons.
The villagers said they have been suffering a rash of robberies by outsiders, according to police.
While Thailand is predominantly Buddhist, the country's southernmost provinces are mostly Muslim, and people sometimes resent officials appointed from Bangkok.
This sparked a separatist movement in the south decades ago, but most of the 20,000 Islamic fighters gave up their arms after a 1984 government amnesty.
Since then the region had been largely peaceful, but violence erupted anew in late 2001 with bombings and attacks on police that left more than 20 security personnel dead in one year.
The government said the violence had nothing to do with separatism but was simply retaliation by criminals against police. - AP
There's a conflict between these two statements? I don't think so.
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