Narathiwat: Encounter between soldiers and militants in the district for six days ThailandSix people have died in the troubled south military Said on Monday, as soldiers hunt for rebels hiding in a swampy forest.
Thailand’s three southernmost provinces are engulfed in a 17-year conflict that has killed more than 7,000 people, the vast majority of them civilians, as militants in the Muslim-majority region fight for greater autonomy from the Thai state.
The pandemic had brought a lull in the clashes – often referred to as tit-for-tat attacks – but fighting has seen a renewal in recent weeks.
Thailand’s Fourth Military Region, which oversees the southern provinces, said on Monday that the army had been locked in a fight with separatists. Narathivat Province From 28 September.
Colonel Kitisak Newong, the security in-charge of the southern military unit, said officers surrounded a marshy forest in Bachao district on Tuesday after receiving information that a group of suspected armed insurgents were hiding.
“We lost our first officer in the encounter last Tuesday,” he told AFP.
“We, with the help of local religious leaders, continued talks with them from day one but they rejected the talks and continued firing.”
By Sunday morning, as the group tried to flee, a shootout broke out in which four suspected rebels and a soldier were killed.
The colonel said that some people are still hiding in the forest.
On Sunday, relatives of the two officers killed cried after the coffins were carried in a helicopter.
The police and military have long been accused of heavy-handed tactics by residents of Thailand’s so-called “Deep South”.
The region – heavily controlled by Thai security forces – is culturally distinct from Buddhist-majority Thailand, which colonized the region bordering Malaysia a century ago.
Relations between the Thai state and the major rebel group Barisan Revolusi National, whose land there are rebels, showed heat in early 2020 when they met for the first time in Kuala Lumpur.
But the army continued to attack the rebels, said Don Pathan, a security analyst in Thailand.
“The army on the ground is still stuck in a zero-sum game approach,” he told AFP.
By July 2021, the rebels “decided that this was enough and they wanted to go on the offensive,” he said, with more counter-attacks likely to come from both sides.
Thailand’s three southernmost provinces are engulfed in a 17-year conflict that has killed more than 7,000 people, the vast majority of them civilians, as militants in the Muslim-majority region fight for greater autonomy from the Thai state.
The pandemic had brought a lull in the clashes – often referred to as tit-for-tat attacks – but fighting has seen a renewal in recent weeks.
Thailand’s Fourth Military Region, which oversees the southern provinces, said on Monday that the army had been locked in a fight with separatists. Narathivat Province From 28 September.
Colonel Kitisak Newong, the security in-charge of the southern military unit, said officers surrounded a marshy forest in Bachao district on Tuesday after receiving information that a group of suspected armed insurgents were hiding.
“We lost our first officer in the encounter last Tuesday,” he told AFP.
“We, with the help of local religious leaders, continued talks with them from day one but they rejected the talks and continued firing.”
By Sunday morning, as the group tried to flee, a shootout broke out in which four suspected rebels and a soldier were killed.
The colonel said that some people are still hiding in the forest.
On Sunday, relatives of the two officers killed cried after the coffins were carried in a helicopter.
The police and military have long been accused of heavy-handed tactics by residents of Thailand’s so-called “Deep South”.
The region – heavily controlled by Thai security forces – is culturally distinct from Buddhist-majority Thailand, which colonized the region bordering Malaysia a century ago.
Relations between the Thai state and the major rebel group Barisan Revolusi National, whose land there are rebels, showed heat in early 2020 when they met for the first time in Kuala Lumpur.
But the army continued to attack the rebels, said Don Pathan, a security analyst in Thailand.
“The army on the ground is still stuck in a zero-sum game approach,” he told AFP.
By July 2021, the rebels “decided that this was enough and they wanted to go on the offensive,” he said, with more counter-attacks likely to come from both sides.
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