Chinese New Year cheer was scarce in the southern provinces as violence continued to claim casualties--with three people shot dead in Yala and six soldiers wounded by a bomb in Pattani in south Thailand on Sunday night, police said yesterday.
In Yala's Muang district, villager Arif Topho, 21, was shot dead while riding a motorcycle in Ban Prama in Tambon Sateng Nok near midnight on Sunday.
At the same time, in Raman district, four gunmen on two motorcycles--using M16 and AK47 rifles and a .38 pistol--fatally shot Joh Ka Tae assistant village headman Maso Wadeh, 55, and villager Awae Juyoh, 48, as they returned from Songkhla in a pick-up.
Police suspect the two killings are part of the ongoing insurgency, but haven't totally ruled out a personal conflict as motive for the attack.
Pattani police yesterday investigated the scene of Sunday's bomb attack in Ban Pa Moung, Tambon Manang Dalam, Sai Buri district, where six soldiers were hurt.
The six-soldier team, led by Capt Suchart Rodpol, was on the way to help the Ban Chalako military outpost of Task Force 26 that had been ambushed by insurgents. Nobody was hurt in the attack, but the six soldiers in the relief team were wounded by a suspected insurgent bomb. They are now recovering in Narathiwat Hospital.
Police suspected the bomb attack was carried out by a group led by Afandi Kapa, 26, from the Runda Kumpulan Kecil (RKK) separatist movement. Two days earlier Thai intelligence reported Afandi's movement in Pattani's Kapor and Sai Buri districts. A combined force searched three locations and set up checkpoints, but failed to find him.
Army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha said the military outpost attack reflected the insurgents' desire to drag international groups into the insurgency.
He said Thai authorities couldn't defeat the southern insurgents just by force--it was a battle of wits to win support and not normal violence in which culprits could be punished by the law. He said the insurgency was hard to defeat militarily, as Thai security officials were in the open and insurgents could attack them anytime.
