■ Officials said a Thai soldier who killed 26 and injured 57 was shot dead at a mall.

Officials say gunman shot dead in mall; 57 people wounded

NAKHON RATCHASIMA, Thailand — Thai officials said a soldier who went on a shooting rampage and killed at least 26 people and injured 57 others has been shot dead inside a mall in northeastern Thailand.

Officials said the soldier, who was angry over a financial dispute, first killed two people and then went on a far bloodier rampage Saturday, shooting as he drove to a busy mall where shoppers fled in terror.

Defense Ministry spokesman

Lt. Gen. Kongcheep Tantrawanich said Sgt. Maj. Jakrapanth Thomma was behind the attack in Nakhon Ratchasima, a hub for Thailand’s relatively poorer and rural northeastern region. Much of the shooting took place at Terminal 21 Korat, an airport-themed mall.

Video taken outside the mall showed people diving for cover as shots rang out mid-afternoon Saturday. Many were killed outside the mall, some in cars, others while walking.

Hundreds of people were evacuated from the mall in small batches by police while they searched for the gunman.

Shortly before midnight, police announced they had secured the above-ground portion of the mall but were still searching for the shooter. About 16 hours later, officials held a news conference outside the mall to announce the gunman was fatally shot.

The officials did not release any further details.

Defense Ministry spokesman Kongcheep told Thai media that the first person killed was the commanding officer of the 22nd Ammunition Battalion, in which the suspect also served. He said the gunman had fired at others at his base and took guns and ammunition before fleeing in an army Humvee.

City and neighborhood police officers, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to release information, said the man fired shots as he drove to the mall. Thai Rath television aired mall security camera footage showing a man with what appeared to be an assault rifle.

The man also posted updates to his Facebook page during the rampage.

“No one can escape death,” read one post. Another asked, “Should I give up?” In a later post, he wrote, “I have stopped already.”

A photo circulated on social media that appeared to be taken from the Facebook page shows a man wearing a green camouflaged military helmet while a fireball and black smoke rage behind him. The Facebook page was made inaccessible after the shooting began.

The shooting comes just a month after another high-profile mall shooting in the central Thai city of Lopburi.

In that case, a masked gunman carrying a handgun with a silencer killed three people, including a 2-year-old boy, and wounded four others as he robbed a jewelry store.