Five killed in ambush in Thailand

Suspected Muslim insurgents detonated a roadside bomb and opened fire on security forces in southern Thailand on Thursday night, killing five members of a patrol, an officer said.

Separatist insurgents have been battling security forces in predominantly Buddhist Thailand’s Muslim-majority deep south, on the border with Malaysia, for about six years.

More than 4,000 people have been killed in the rubber-rich provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, which were part of a Muslim sultanate that Thailand annexed a century ago.

The insurgents often set off crude bombs and ambush security forces, as happened in the latest attack.

“The group was on night patrol in a pick-up truck when they were ambushed,” said Lieutenant Pairat Kiatjaroensiri, adding the attackers snatched four guns and fled. Three of the five victims were Muslim and two Buddhist.

As well as members of the security forces, the insurgents usually attack other people associated with the Thai state, including government officials and teachers.

The violence has not spread outside the region but the trouble is another major worry for southeast Asia’s second biggest economy, already beset with divisions, which occasionally spark violence, between political blocs. Reuters