Pattani local administrative official killed in ambush

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Pattani local administrative official killed in ambush

PATTANI: -- The vice president of Tambon Khao Toom local administrative office was fatally shot in a roadside ambush early Tuesday in Tambon Khao Toom in Yarang district of Pattani.

The car veered off the road and rammed at a power pole on the side of the road.

Sarong station police said the vice president Umah Kuteh, 48, was ambushed while he was driving home in a Mitsubishi car near a Muslim cemetery at Ban Bato.

Local people alerted the police who arrived along with army rangers to inspect the scene and rushed the fatally shot official to Yala hospital centre.

He died later at the hospital late this morning.

Police have not established exact motive of the ambush but said personal or political conflict might be a cause.

But they didn’t rule out insurgency in the ambush.

Earlier on Monday night, one police officer was injured when southern insurgents ambushed a police patrol truck on Highway 42 from Pattani to Nong Chik.

A group of policemen was travelling in a truck back to Napradoo police station after providing security at a Thai Red Cross fair in Pattani.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/pattani-local-administrative-official-killed-in-ambush

-- Thai PBS 2015-05-12