Prawit rejects link between peace talks, fatal shooting
Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon has shrugged off concerns there is a link between the deadly drive-by shooting in Narathiwat on Thursday and ongoing peace talks with the Mara Pattani umbrella organisation of deep South rebel groups.
The attack on Rangae police station, which left one police officer dead and five others wounded, erupted two weeks after a government team of negotiators announced its joint plan with Mara Pattani to set up safety zones in five districts of the three southernmost provinces.
Among criteria for selecting a safety zone is that attacks often occur there, or where Mara Pattani can control its operational units, Maj Gen Sitthi Trakulwong, secretary of the team, said on March 16.
In the view of Gen Prawit, he saw no connection between the move to set up safety zones and the attack in Rangae, one of the violence-prone districts in Narathiwat that borders Malaysia.
In late March last year, an ambush in Rangae district also targeted policemen. Insurgent suspects fired a M79 grenade and sprayed bullets at the officers’ pickup truck as it was driving into Ban Mo Sawa in the district.
Three were killed and six others were seriously wounded, according to security officials.
In t he latest attack on Thursday, 30 spent shells from M16 and HK assault rifles were found after gunmen on a pickup truck opened fired at police and fled after a police officer fired back.
Investigators believed the attackers had stolen the pickup truck from a couple after they were forced by a group of people pretending to be security officers to stop their vehicle at a fake security checkpoint in Narathiwat’s Sukhirin district.
The station attack is suspected to have been carried out in revenge for the extrajudicial killings of Isma-ae Hama, 28, and Arseng Useng, 30, who were accused of being involved in the murder of an assistant village head and his three family members, in Narathiwat’s Rueso district on Wednesday, a security source said.
The violence has caused the Internal Security Operations Command in Songkhla to tighten security in the province’s seven districts, including conducting inspections of vehicles that may have been stolen.
The seven districts are Muang, Hat Yai, Sadao, Chana, Thepha, Na Thawi and Saba Yoi.
Despite Thursday’s attack, Gen Prawit is still optimistic about government efforts to end the southern insurgency.
From a big-picture perspective, violence is declining with fewer deaths and injuries, he said.
Prayad Sukkhi, chief of Narathiwat Primary Educational Service Area Office 1, said schools in the restive province have stepped up security following the attack. Security officials have been deployed around the clock at schools in red-zone areas.