Four held in Narathiwat over attack on checkpoint
Four suspects were arrested yesterday over an assault Tuesday night on a checkpoint in Narathiwat's Si Sakhon district, which left two volunteer rangers injured.
The four men – Abdulrohim Yusoh, Adulrohman Rona, Adema Taya and Saree Saemarae – reportedly confessed their role in the attack.
Initial investigation found that the 10 assailants were divided into two teams. One team was responsible for lobbing four grenades – one of which did not go off – while the other team fired assault rifles at the 14 officials manning the checkpoint. The 10pm assault led to a 10-minute gunfight, and police yesterday collected some 100 spent bullets at the site.
Meanwhile, Narathiwat Rajanakarin Hospital is urgently seeking donations of blood group B for volunteer ranger Tossaporn Taempeng, 26, who was seriously injured in the assault.
After several shootings in Pattani’s Thung Yang Daeng and Muang districts, as well as a roadside-bomb attack on Tuesday that killed a soldier and left several others injured, security teams searched houses in targeted areas yesterday.
They arrested six suspected insurgent sympathisers, aged 18-20, in Thung Yang Daeng’s tambon Paku and another four suspected sympathisers, aged 25-35, in Muang’s tambon Paka Harang. The suspects’ fingerprints and DNA samples were collected for comparison to those found at scenes of previous attacks.
After completing his recent trip to the deep South, Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yoobamrung met with the National Security Council, the National Intelligence Agency and the Royal Thai Police yesterday to discuss the unrest in the region. He pointed out that though the Army was 100 per cent disciplined, many agencies operating in the region were not unified.
Chalerm also said he would visit the restive region again in the near future.
