Insurgents hurt making bomb
Police say suspects were planning to attack security officials in Narathiwat
Three or four suspected insurgents were injured in Narathiwat’s Tak Bai district yesterday when a bomb they were making detonated prematurely, police said. Meanwhile, Pattani’s Sai Buri district saw a defence volunteer slain in a shooting, and two other defence volunteers slightly hurt by a roadside bomb.
Following the 10.45am report of an explosion in Tambon Jehe forest, Tak Bai police and a bomb squad rushed to the scene and found pieces of an exploded 25kg homemade bomb in a gas cylinder, along with splatterings of blood.
First Lieutenant Narasak Baikhaikhom, who alerted officials to the bomb, told police he and his patrol team were travelling along Tak Bai-Taba road near Tambon Jehe Municipality, when they heard a loud explosion in the forest. Police suspect a group of three to four insurgents were making the bomb to attack security officers in Tak Bai, but detonated the device by mistake. Although there were signs the bomb-makers were injured by the blast, they managed to flee before authorities arrived.
In Pattani at 8.30am, Thai authorities inspected a scene in Tambon Manang Dalam where defence volunteer Muhammad Saifu Aldultoreb, 32, was fatally gunned down while travelling to work at Sai Buri district office. Two gunmen, who then fled the scene on a motorbike, reportedly shot him twice in the head at close range.
At 9.30am, a bomb went off on a bridge in Tambon Pase Yawor slightly injuring two paramilitary volunteers in their 20s who were on patrol. This occurred several kilometres from the shooting in Tambon Manang Dalam, so officers were dispatched to probe the bomb scene. Police said they suspect the same insurgent sympathisers carried out the shooting and bombing. In another incident, a drive-by shooting in Pattani’s Nong Chik district on Friday night seriously injured local woman, Patimoh Jehsorhor, 42.
In Yala’s Yaha district, following a gunfight in Tambon Patae on Friday afternoon that led to the extrajudicial killing of three suspected insurgents and the seizure of seven guns and 10 communication radios and cell phones, Yala police chief Police Major General Peera Boonliang said the suspects were found to have prior convictions. He said suspect Boonya Daleng’s DNA sample matched that found at the scene of a failed attack on a marine base in Narathiwat’s Bacho district in February. The second suspect, Budeeman Mayi, was wanted for a village shooting in Bannang Sata district last year, while the third man, Adultoloh Saha, was wanted for killing and decapitating two paratroopers in Bannang Sata in 2009, he said.
Peera also said that among the four to five insurgents who escaped on Friday, was operative Abdulloh Tapohoh – wanted for the April 5 bombing that killed Yala deputy governor Issara Thongthawat and provincial civil defence chief Chaowalit Chairuerk. A royally sponsored cremation for Issara took place yesterday at Wat Mahathat in Nakhon Si Thammarat.
Meanwhile, the Nakhon Si Thammarat kamnan and village headmen’s association said they had raised Bt670,000 of the Bt1 million reward for anyone who could provide key information about the killers of Issara and Chawalit. Issara’s driver, Satorpa Jehloh, who was seriously injured in the same incident, was moved out of ICU yesterday. However, doctors at Yala Hospital, where he is being treated, said he would be closely monitored.
In related news, in Prachuap Khiri Khan’s Pran Buri district, national police chief Adul Saengsingkaew yesterday presented 1,982 new non-commissioned police, who will be deployed to the restive region on May 1.
