5 soldiers, four police injured in southern attacks
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Five soldiers were injured in a roadside bomb attack yesterday in Narathiwat's Reu So district while another roadside bomb in Yala's Yaha district, targeting a bomb squad police car, left four policemen and two civilians wounded.
The bombing in Narathiwat occurred at 11am on Tha Reu-Kota Baru Road in Tambon Batong. Police and bomb squad officials rushed to inspect the scene where they found a 1.5-metre-deep, two-metre-wide crater and debris of the home-made bomb in a 25kg cooking-gas cylinder. Some 40 metres from the crater, they found the wrecked Isuzu pickup truck of the soldiers’ team.
The injured soldiers – Private Sorawit Onjanbok, First Lieutenant Chaiwat Kalong, Sergeant Sunthorn Thaeng-in, Private Wutthichai Theungchumphon and Private Purin Fakthong – were admitted to Reu Soh Hospital.
Chiwat, the team leader, said the group was returning from a meeting in the pickup truck when an unknown number of suspected insurgents, hiding behind a roadside bush, detonated the bomb. The truck landed 40 metres away under the impact of the blast. Chiwat said he instructed his subordinates to find cover and fire at the suspects, until some villagers passing by helped them to hospital.
In another incident, in Narathiwat’s Sungai Padi district, a blast at 7am targeted police who were investigating a shooting incident in which some assailants on motorcycles had opened fire at a police checkpoint at 4.45am. The police were, however, unharmed by the home-made bomb, which was placed near a tree.
At 10.50am in Yala’s Yaha district, another roadside bomb placed in a 30kg gas cylinder hit the bomb squad police car on Yala-Tao Poon Road in Tambon Tha Sap. Investigating police found the wrecked car in the middle of the road along near a three metres wide and one-metre-deep crater while another police van plunged into a roadside ditch.
Four policemen were injured in the attack – Police Senior Sgt-Major Saravuth Daokrajai, Police Sergeant Charnwit Sirimul, Police Senior Sgt-Major Chaiyuth Chanmanee, Police Lance Corporal Somkiat Toeikaew. Two passers-by – a Myanmar worker in his 20s and a Thai woman, Yuwapa Phomnoi – were also injured and rushed to a local hospital.
The police team was returning after inspecting the bombing of a power pole that brought down seven power poles – one at the Yaha intersection and five along the Yaha-Kabang Road and one on Yaha-Patae Road – leading to a blackout throughout Yaha district at 5am. After the roadside bomb hit their truck and caused the police van to plunge into a roadside ditch, the injured officials engaged in a gunfight with suspected insurgents who were hiding behind bushes for 10 minutes before the suspects fled.
