SOUTHERN VIOLENCE
WAEDAO HARAI & MUHAMMAD AYUB PATHAN
NARATHIWAT : A private in a teacher escort unit was killed and five other soldiers critically injured in a bomb blast and ensuing ambush in Cho Airong district yesterday morning. The explosion occurred on Ban Ta-ngo Bugehtamong road when a 12-strong teacher escort team was on its way to pick up teachers waiting at a meeting point to be accompanied to their school.
After the explosion, at least 10 gunmen waiting in ambush opened fire on the escort team.
A 10-minute firefight followed before the attackers retreated.
Police identified the dead soldier as Pvt Saengpet Butraruk, 22.
The wounded were Sgt-Maj 1st Class Pongpan Setchan, Sgt Surasak Saensuk, Pvt 1st Class Paruehat Pabchai, Pvt Noppakorn Chanpakdee and Pvt Kowit Nuannoi.
Sgt Surasak received the most serious wounds, with shrapnel injuries to his left arm.
Police said the 20kg homemade bomb was buried underground and detonated by remote control.
Following the attack, a 100-strong paramilitary unit with sniffer dogs began trying to hunt down the attackers within a one-kilometre radius of the ambush scene.
Also in Narathiwat, three suspects connected to the death of teacher Juling Pongkunmul were arrested in a major raid on three villages in Rangae district yesterday morning.
A large arms cache was also seized during the six-hour operation launched by a 1,000-strong combined force of police, soldiers and local administrators.
Juling was brutally beaten by villagers on May 19, 2006, and died after almost eight months in a coma.
Apart from the three arrested suspects, 57 others were detained in the raid, but police released them later after profiling, fingerprinting and DNA-testing them.
In Yala, volunteer rangers came across a small rebel group preparing to launch an attack in Yaha district yesterday.
The encounter led to a brief armed clash. No casualties were reported.
Three suspected militants fled the scene but left a chainsaw and their rucksacks behind. The rangers found food supplies and medicine inside.
The ranger unit also managed to deactivate two homemade bombs placed to kill the crime scene inspectors.
Yala Centre hospital yesterday made a public appeal for blood donations essential for life-saving operations on policemen severely injured in a bomb blast in Raman district on Monday.
Of the three critically-injured policemen, Pol Cpl Sukit Srikanoon was pronounced dead after succumbing to his wounds on Tuesday night.
On Monday, 10 policemen were wounded in a bomb blast near a tea shop while on their way to inspect a fruit orchard reportedly destroyed by a militant network in the district.
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