Thai Investigators Return To Bangkok

Muslim marine killed in Thai restive south ambush

05.11.2004

BANGKOK - Suspected Muslim militants killed a Thai Marine guarding a Buddhist temple in the largely Muslim south, the latest retaliation for the deaths of 85 protesters last week, police said on Friday.

Armed with M-16 assault rifles, the gunmen attacked the temple compound in a Buddhist village in Narathiwat province's Ruesoh district around midnight on Thursday and killed a 22-year-old Muslim private in a five-minute firefight, they said.

The death took to at least 15 the number of people killed by militants since last month's deaths of 85 protesters, 78 of whom suffocated or were crushed after being crammed into army trucks for a long journey into detention.

One of the victims was a Buddhist monk who was shot and severely wounded after a religious ceremony in nearby Songkhla on Thursday and died later in hospital, police said.

More than 450 people have been killed in a wave of violence which erupted in January when militants stormed an army camp in the remote south bordering Malaysia, killing four soldiers and making off with 300 assault rifles, most of them M-16s.

With no signs the mainly Buddhist government in Bangkok is any closer to coming up with policies or answers to resolve the unrest, the daily cycle of shootings and explosions appears to be accelerating.

The government has sent a team of investigators to determine what exactly happened on October 25 at Tak Bai police station in Narathiwat when hundreds of people, mostly young Muslim men, demanded the release of six villagers accused of handing government-issued weapons to militants.

Police appear to be carrying out their own investigation.

On Thursday, journalists said they were invited to a news conference in Narathiwat only to be confronted by a team of police investigators from Bangkok armed with warrants. The journalists said the warrants ordered them to tell police everything they knew about the Tak Bai incident.

"They wanted us to tell them what happened from the start of the protest and wanted all our materials, including film and video tapes we shot," said one.

- REUTERS