Thailand's cabinet has approved deployment of 2,760 additional locally-recruited paramilitary rangers, including a dozen platoons of woman rangers, to the country's southernmost provinces to carry out tactical missions in the turbulent region. Assistant government spokesman Natthawat Suthiyothin said the Cabinet decision for an additional deployment of army-trained rangers included 28 companies of rangers, plus 11 platoons of women rangers, to carry out missions in Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani with a Bt1.4 billion budget earmarked for this year, to be followed by an added Bt381 million budget for the following year.
The paramilitary rangers, however, are generally younger and usually provide deeper local understanding than seasoned veterans reassigned from other parts of the country.
The nearly 2,800 rangers will serve under the command of the Fourth Army Region which is directly tasked with containing southern border unrest and combating insurgents. The rangers have been trained to operate with high degrees of flexibility and rapidness, especially in the mountainous, remote areas of the southernmost region. The Fourth Army began to deploy the rangers during the past few months as a supplementary tactical force. |