Bullets used in South raid match weapon
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Shells from M60 machine-gun rounds found outside a ranger outpost near the home of a leading Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) member in Narathiwat's Ra Ngae district were fired from a rifle stolen during a 2008 attack in Chanae district in which eight sold
Police and Army officials inspected the outpost at 8am yesterday. The facility, which was attacked at 7.55pm on Friday, is near the house of Hassan Toib, who was involved in peace talks with Thai officials in Kuala Lumpur last month.
A police investigation found that four or five assailants opened fire on the ranger outpost at Ban Ba Ngo Sato, after which both sides fired at each other for five minutes amid heavy rains, before the assailants retreated under cover of darkness after back-up rangers arrived. No casualties were reported among government forces.
Police also collected 92 shells of M-60 machine-gun rounds and 44 M-16 shells at the scene. They initially determined that the M60 casings were fired from a gun stolen from one of the victims of the January 15, 2008 attack.
Police are trying to determine which insurgent used this gun, police said, adding that they suspect the same weapon was used in another attack on a garment factory on January 6, 2012 that killed two Rusoh district defence volunteers and wounded three others.
In related news, village headman assistant Tolae Putan, 46, was fatally shot while driving his sedan home in Pattani’s Ma-Yor district on Friday night.
He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Police found at the scene eight shells from an AK assault rifle and five from M-16 rifles.
While the government has held peace talks with the BRN and other Muslim insurgent groups in an effort to restore peace in the deep South, the attacks on Thai officials and Army outposts in the region seem to have escalated in the past few months, reportedly carried out by militant factions that object to the dialogue.
