PATTANI: A man was killed in a drive-by shooting in Pattani province and gas cylinders that could be used for making bombs were seized in a separate incident in Narathiwat province.
Police in Thung Yang Daeng district of Pattani were alerted on Friday afternoon after two men on a motorcycle shot Muhammad Ama, 35, of Kok Pho district, in front of a mosque in Thung Yang Daeng. He died on the spot.
An initial investigation found the victim was about to return home from prayers when one of his attackers fired one shot at him and sped away.
Police have not established a motive.
In Narathiwat yesterday morning, marine officers searched an area in Bacho district after receiving a tip about suspects who had detonated a bomb targeting a marine patrol team earlier.
They found the suspects, a Glock 19 pistol, bullets and some crystal methamphetamine.
They later searched a house and found several tools.
They also found two steel air-conditioning coolant cylinders, which had been cut open, one empty LPG cylinder and some steel rods. The components could be used to assemble improvised bombs.
The Internal Security Operations Command earlier ordered the replacement of steel gas cylinders with composite ones in the three southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat. That appears to have forced insurgents to look for different materials.
Meanwhile, Somkit Nakhaphisut, director of the office of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission's (NBTC) area office in Yala, said many people have come to register their mobile phone SIM cards as required by the Internal Security Operations Command Region 4 Forward Command.
SIM card owners in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat and four districts of Songkhla are required to present their ID cards and SIM cards for verification to ensure they are the rightful owners of each.
Aimed at preventing SIM cards from being used in bombing attacks in the deep South, the SIM card registration process began on June 1 and is due to end on Oct 31, he said.