At 4.30pm last Sunday, Muhamanawaree Hajidoloh was at his home in Tambon Bukit when the afternoon silence was broken by the sound of a gun battle.
“It was unusual,” said the local spiritual leader, even though his village is located in a conflict area in the far South. His home is located three kilometres from Cho Airong Hospital in Narathiwat province.
Mr Muhamanawaree, who is vice-president of the Cho Airong Imam Club, told his family to stay inside the house.
“I didn’t know what was happening,” he told Spectrum. After a while, the sound of gunfire ended and the imam received a phone call from the Cho Airong district chief telling him a group of insurgents had seized the hospital.
“It has never happened at a hospital before,” the 53-year-old imam said.
Around 6pm, after the attack was over, the district chief asked Mr Muhamanawaree and three other imams to visit the hospital to boost the morale of staff and patients.
“When we arrived there, some staff members and patients were still shaken,” he said. “We were trying to calm their fears.”
The imams’ visit was heavily guarded by the military and security officers who were also examining the location after a 10-minute shootout which left several hundred used ammunition shells scattered around the hospital compound.
“The shootout must have been very intense,” Mr Muhamanawaree said.
DIVERSIONARY TACTICS
About 50 heavily armed insurgents seized Cho Airong Hospital to use it as a base to launch an attack against the adjacent Army Ranger Camp 4816, an outpost of 71 rangers stationed there to protect the hospital and neighbouring area.
The attack, in fact, started around 4pm at the district’s railway station about 2km from the hospital. Four insurgents riding two motorcycles targeted a security unit stationed at the railway station in a drive-by shooting. As the security officers tried to chase them, the insurgents shot back with an M79 grenade launcher. No one was injured.
“The attack at the railway station was a tactic to divert attention away from the hospital. The insurgents thought that Army Ranger Camp 4816 would send its security force to the railway station,” said a security officer who was at the scene.
Instead, troops from a different unit, Army Ranger Camp 4804, were sent to the station. The insurgents’ diversionary tactics had backfired, as by that time every army base in the area had been placed on full alert.
“Every soldier was ready at his station, positioned behind sandbag bunkers,” the army source said.
Cho Airong Hospital is located close to the railway station, while a Buddhist temple is within walking distance. Twenty years ago, authorities set aside protected land and forest to build public utilities after Cho Airong separated from Rangae district to become a district in its own right. This forested area backs directly onto the hospital compound.
Cho Airong Hospital has four doctors working there. Designated as a district hospital, it has a capacity of 30 beds, though the severity of violence in the area has reduced this to 11 beds due to a lack of personnel.
Its patients include both Buddhists and Muslims, who make up the majority of the 38,000 residents in the district. Half of the health professionals, including the hospital’s director, are Buddhist.
Cho Airong Hospital is located on land once under the supervision of a ranger regiment. “There were 200 army rangers stationed here in the past,” the military source told Spectrum. “But after some of the land was given to the hospital, the number of security officers was reduced.”
The district was at the centre of the escalation of violence in the southern provinces 12 years ago.
“The area is home to a high a concentration of insurgents,” a security analyst said.
OVER THE WALL
The army source said that after the shootout at the railway station, another group of insurgents tried to raid the ranger camp located behind the hospital. Clad in black and wearing balaclavas to cover their faces, they had come through a rubber plantation at the foot of the Tawe mountain range, an insurgent stronghold.
To gain access to the compound, the heavily armed insurgents clambered over a two-and-a-half metre high wall at the rear of the hospital.
The army source refused to confirm the number, but witnesses, sources and security footage indicated there were at least 50 gunmen.
“They were trying to take control of key hospital buildings to use the hospital as a base to attack the army camp and use patients as shields,” the military source said.
Around 4.30pm, four to five insurgents ran to the front gate. There, Isaha Johtae, one of the hospital guards, was praying inside the security booth. The other guard, Jaewa Pengdeewaso, was positioned outside the booth. Three other people, including an eight-year-old child, were walking around the front gate area.
The armed insurgents approached the front gate and forced Mr Jaewa and the three people inside the booth alongside Mr Isaha.
“They forced the guards and the others to lie face down,” another source, who is a leader in the Muslim community, told Spectrum. “Mr Isaha told me that they all followed the insurgents’ orders because they were afraid.”
A small group of insurgents had stationed themselves in front of the hospital to prevent security officers from entering the compound.
Some of the attackers entered the main hospital building where doctors and nurses were busy at work. “But the insurgents did not want to hurt them,” the source said. “They did not use the main building as their fire base. They told people to go inside a room and then stood guard against soldiers arriving in front of the main building.”
At the same time, another group of insurgents took control of five more buildings inside the compound: a three-storey residential flat at the rear of the hospital, three two-storey houses used to accommodate health workers and the Family Medicine Building located adjacent to the army base.
They told those inside the residential flats to stay inside their rooms.
“People heard them speaking in both Malay and Thai,” the army source said.
“Luckily, there was no one inside the three houses at that time.”
The insurgents then moved to the Family Medicine Building, located in front of the health professionals’ residences.
Orawan Namkhan was the only one inside. The nurse, six months pregnant, was working an overtime shift.
“I knew immediately that they were not security officers,” she said.
Ms Orawan was asked to sit still, be quiet and look down at the floor. Her hands were loosely tied with plastic rope.
“At first, I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “I thought of the future and I thought maybe my life would end there. I told the insurgents not to hurt me, that I was pregnant and didn’t want to die. I was saying whatever went through my mind.”
At 4.36pm, the insurgents started shooting at the army base from windows on the upper levels of the five buildings they had seized.
BACK-UP ARRIVES
Every ranger in the army base was already on full alert after the railway station attack. Normally, about two-thirds of the 71 rangers stationed there are on duty at any given time.
But a group of seven rangers had just returned to the base from work with the local community when the insurgents started shooting. Seven were wounded.
The rangers already inside the base sought refuge in a bunker close to the hospital and were forced to shoot into the sky, unable to risk returning direct fire. “We didn’t want to hurt the patients,” the army source said.
Another group of insurgents were trying to enter the army camp from the rear of the base, but they were met with gunfire from rangers defending the position. “I think some insurgents were hurt. We found their blood stains,” the military source said.
The besieged rangers called for reinforcements, who arrived six minutes after the shootout started. The backup forces, numbering more than 20, included the 4804 unit which was only 2km away at the railway station, along with police and a special military task force.
They brought three armoured vehicles, which were used as a shield from which to battle the insurgents.
At the same time, another group of insurgents detonated a 20kg homemade bomb at the foot of a bridge in Ban Yaning, in the same district, but it caused only minor damage.
“We believe the bomb was part of the same operation,” the source said. “The insurgents wanted to divert the attention of the army.”
At 4.44pm, the guards at the front gate heard one of the insurgents say, “Everyone, retreat” in Malay. The guards got to their feet and watched the insurgents scale the back wall and melt away into the jungle. The rangers, wary of ambush, did not pursue them.
Ms Orawan untied the ropes herself. She walked outside the building and saw government security officers.
“I was very afraid. Every minute lasted so long,” she recalled.
“I used to think that the hospital was the safest place. Now, I am not certain any more. I want security officers to tighten security measures inside the hospital, because nurses and health professionals provide services to every patient without prejudice.”
The insurgents used a variety of weapons in the assault, including M16s, M79s and AK-47s, based on ballistics analysis of the several hundred shell casings found scattered around the hospital compound.
Hospital director Boonrat Prapanwong said despite the attack, the hospital will continue providing services as usual.
PRICE OF PEACE
The hospital siege was one of more than 10 attacks in Yala and Narathiwat from Sunday to Monday morning, which left one volunteer dead and 10 people injured.
Thai authorities believe it was no coincidence the attacks occurred on the 56th anniversary of the founding of the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), the largest and most powerful armed separatist movement in the southernmost provinces.
Cho Airong district is where the new wave of the southern insurgency started. At dawn on Jan 4, 2004, an armed group raided the Krom Luang Naradhiwas Rajanagarindra military camp in Cho Airong, stealing more than 400 government firearms.
Cho Airong become a district in 1996. Prior to that, it was a subdistrict in Rangae district in Narathiwat province.
In the past decade, intermittent gun attacks and bomb blasts have been reported in Cho Airong district, which has became a “symbolic battle ground” for insurgent groups, according to one expert. The government planned to make Cho Airong one of five districts in three southern provinces deemed “safety zones” as part of an ongoing peace-building process.
The government is holding peace talks with the umbrella separatists group Mara Patani — comprising the BRN, Gerakan Mujahideen Islam Patani, Barisan Islam Pembebasan Patani, and three factions of the Patani Liberation Organisation.
Srisompop Chitpirom, director of Deep South Watch, said some members of the group did not agree with the peace talks, which may have been the motivation for last week’s attacks.
In particular, they do not agree with designating Cho Airong as one of the pilot safety zones, as they consider it a one-sided proposal from the government.
They are concerned the safety zone concept, led by the Fourth Army Region, would also result in locals collaborating with authorities to monitor and report insurgency activity.
But Mr Srisompop believes the 56th anniversary of the BRN establishment is not the only motive for last Sunday’s attacks. Another reason could be the civil court’s decision last December to seize 14 rai of land in Pattani where the Jihad Witaya School is located.
The court said the property was used as a training ground for insurgents. But the land is wakaf, a property which is bequeathed for the benefit of the community in perpetuity. Another independent security source said the insurgents launched the attack to show that despite the current peace efforts, the area is still ungovernable.
“They disagree with the Mara Patani peace process. And they use unconventional warfare to switch off the process,” the security source said.
But he said the decision to attack a hospital in order to target the military had damaged the insurgents’ reputation. “It was difficult to defend their decision to use the hospital as the stage for the attack,” he said.
A security analyst said that an attack of this scale was unprecedented for the southern insurgents. “Usually, the attack would involve around four people using hit and run tactics. The attack at the hospital more closely resembled conventional warfare,” he said.
The last time insurgents staged an attack anywhere near this scale was in February 2013, when 16 attackers were killed in a failed raid on a marine base in Bacho District of Narathiwat, the analyst added.
On Tuesday, 500 Muslim religious leaders gathered at Cho Airong Hospital for prayer in a bid to restore the morale of patients and doctors and nurses.
“Some people may interpret the prayer as a condemnation of the attack,” said the analyst. “But it is normal for Muslims to pray to connect with their God and restore their morale.”
Clinical operation: Insurgents stormed the main building of Cho Airong Hospital, but only used it as a defensive position rather than to fire on the neighbouring ranger base.
Mopping up: Military personnel collect bullet casings and other evidence from the scene of the insurgent attack, which is believed to have involved more than 50 gunmen.
Pulling rank: Above left and right, senior military officers inspect Cho Airong Hospital a day after the insurgent attack. Security officials went on high alert when the insurgents attacked a railway station.
Armed and dangerous: CCTV cameras captured images of the heavily armed gunmen.
Line of fire: Security volunteers lock down the hospital compound after the attack by southern insurgents, who retreated into the mountains.