PATTANI: Gunmen ambushed and killed a member of a tambon administration organisation in Yarang district late on Monday night, local police said.
The attack was reported to Yarang district police station about 9.50pm.
Amu Itae, 58, a TAO member in Moo 5 village was slain while driving home in his songthaew along the Baza Pode-Buene Pine Road from a local market.
The stalled songthaew at the scene of the fatal shooting of Amu Itae in Yarang district, Pattani, on Monday night. (Photo by Abdulloh Benjakat)
Police said on Tuesday it was not clear whether the insurgency or a personal conflict was behind the murder.
Earlier on Monday, a motorcycle bomb exploded in the morning at a freshmarket in neighbouring Yala province, killing three civilians and injuring about 34 others.
Also in Pattani, the Internal Security Operations Command (Isoc) Region 4 on Monday took two key suspects detained recently in major security cases to a series of crime scenes for reenactments of the attacks.
Isoc spokesman Col Pramote Phrom-in said Za-udi Yama, named in seven arrest warrants, and Sakariya Muenraya, wanted in six cases, were arrested on Jan 10. He said they confessed during interrogation to being involved in six attacks.
The attacks were the Sept 26, 2015 ambush of a cargo truck, injnuring one person, in Pattani’s Nong Chik district; the April 9, 2016 bombing of four patrol officers from Nong Chik police station; the June 9, 2016 bombing of a military bus transporting students, injuring two; the July 15, 2017 shooting of seven civilians in Nong Chik distirct; the July 28, 2017 killing of Meyeng Sama-ae, a resident of Bang Tan Yong Pao in Nong Chik district; and the Sept 15, 2017 fatal shooting of Masa-udi Yuso, a resident of Moo 6 in tambon Bang Khao, also in Nong Chik district.
A total of 16 suspects were identified in these attacks and 33 arrest warrants were issued. Nine of them have been detained, including the new two suspects, Col Pramote said.
In Songkhla, border patrol police on Monday detained Arbidin Toming, 31, a resident of Saba Yoi district identified by security authorities as a member of the Runda Kumpulan Kecil (RKK) insurgent group and named in four arrest warrants, Thai media reported.
The suspect had jumped bail and gone into hiding in Bangkok some time before public prosecutors dropped three of the arrest warrants but decided to indict him on terrorism and criminal association charges relating to several shootings and bombings of police, the reports said.