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| Southeast Asia |
| Thai soldiers escape injury in an ambush |
| 2009-09-18 |
| Fifteen officers survived a booby-trap bombing and ambush while driving to a mosque in the mainly Muslim province of Narathiwat in Thailand's deep south on Friday. The police were attacked as they travelled in three armoured pick-up trucks, heading for a mosque in Ban Ai Pa Yae to distribute supplies to Muslim residents during the religious fasting month of Ramadan, said Pol Col Pirapat na Badalung of Cho Ai Rong Police Station. Col Pirapat, who was also part of the team, said that as the three armoured pick-up trucks approached the village, about one kilometre from the mosque, suspected insurgents detonated a home-made bomb buried under the road surface. The 15-kg bomb, adapted from a cooking gas cylinder, hit the third pick-up truck which tipped over and fell into a roadside ditch. The assailants, hidden in bushes, immediately stormed the convoy and exchanged gunfire with police for 20 minutes before fleeing, according to local police. The three vehicles were bullet-proof and no one was injured. In another incident on Friday, a one-storey building of the Yarang subdistrict administrative organization in Pattani burned and official documents as well as office equipment were destroyed Pol Col Poonsak Prasertmeth of Yarang Police Station said initial investigation into the 40-minute fire concluded that an estimated five men, wearing masks and carrying rifles, stormed into the office where nine government workers were working. They forced all officials to leave the office and poured gasoline before setting fire to the building. They fled the scene on motorcycles, the police officer said. |
| Posted by:ryuge |