Gunmen leave three soldiers dead in Pattani market shooting
Security forces have launched a hunt for gunmen who shot dead three soldiers in a brazen attack at a market in Pattani province on Thursday.
The soldiers were shot by seven to eight gunmen who were mingling with villagers at the market in Ban Tabae in Mayo district on Thursday evening.
The three soldiers were identified as Sgt Maj Ahhamad Samaali; Private Thanakorn Khimthongdon; and Private Narongsak Mamui, all were from the Pattani-based 25th Special Task Force.
The attack also left a post office worker, whose name was not given, and Nawawee Madeng, a local villager, injured.
The post office worker was taken to Pattani Hospital while Mr Nawawee, who was shot in the leg, managed to flee the scene with his wife and child on their motorcycle to their home in Panare district before he sought medical treatment. Mr Nawawee was later sent to Panare Hospital.
His 80-year-old grandmother, Maesong Madeng, later died of a heart attack when she heard her grandson had been shot.
Elsewhere, police were hunting gunmen who shot dead four people, including an eight-year-old boy, in Narathiwat.
Meanwhile, police have stepped up efforts to track down the killers of a man and woman who later left the couple’s car packed with explosives near a border patrol police camp in Songkhla on Tuesday.
Pol Lt Gen Sakorn Thongmunee, chief of Provincial Police Region 9, yesterday ordered relevant authorities to gather evidence and examine CCTV footage along possible routes the suspects took to escape.
On Tuesday, a Mitsubishi pickup truck, with two cooking gas cylinders in the back and packed with 80kg of explosives, was found parked outside the camp. Bomb disposal experts later defused the car bomb.
Investigators later discovered the pickup truck, with a Songkhla licence plate, belonged to a couple whose badly beaten bodies were found dumped in the Thepha River beneath the Ruam Chai Phak Bridge in Thepha district on Wednesday.
The couple was identified as Kartpon Puwawimon, 51, and his wife Thitapa Puwawimon, 41, of Thepha district.
Police believe the car bombers abducted and killed the couple before stealing their vehicle.
The victims were found blindfolded, their arms tied and had been beaten about the head. They were earlier reported as having been kidnapped from a rubber plantation in Tha Muang, in Songkhla.