BANGKOK — Thai security forces repulsed a coordinated attack by scores of militants against police posts in three provinces Wednesday, killing at least 107 people in the most violent day in years in Thailand’s restive southern region, authorities reported.
The assault began before dawn, when Muslim militants armed with guns, knives and machetes raided about 15 posts only to find that police had been tipped to the attack and were waiting with superior firepower. The fighting continued for much of the day until Thai security forces with tear gas, assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades launched a counterattack against a four-century-old mosque where many retreating militants had holed up, killing more than 30 insurgents. Thai officials reported that five members of the security forces died in the battles.
While Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra blamed the assault on local bandits, Thai police and foreign security sources said the attackers were Muslim separatists with links to militants from outside the country.
The clashes were the latest violence in a series of nearly daily attacks that began in early January when unidentified gunmen stormed an army weapons depot in the southern province of Narathiwat and killed four Thai soldiers. That raid and subsequent violence prompted Thaksin to dispatch troops to Thailand’s southern region, home to the country’s three majority Muslim provinces.
Despite the imposition of martial law in the south, government forces have proven largely unable to stem the attacks, including the killing of policemen and burning of schools and other public buildings, that had left at least 60 people dead before Wednesday.
Unlike in previous incidents, however, police were prepared for the latest assaults, according to Army Chief Gen. Chaisit Shinawatra, who said authorities had been tipped by 10 teenagers arrested last week in connection with arson attacks against school buildings.
But Paul Quaglia, a security analyst at PSA Asia Company with connections to Thai security forces, said police learned of an imminent attack from a local informant who overhead militants discussing their plan.
The informant reported that several men, speaking the local Yawi dialect with a foreign accent, came into the market in the southern town of Pattani on Tuesday and began talking about local tensions, Quaglia said. A few of the men then mentioned possible targets, including a natural gas pipeline project begun earlier this year that will connect Thailand and Malaysia.
In response, Thai security forces went on alert in the Chana area of Songkhla province, site of the pipeline project, and along a main road connecting Chana with Pattani. The alert was later extended throughout four southern provinces. Though the insurgents did not target the project, police and soldiers were nonetheless ready for battle when the coordinated attacks began.
Many of the insurgents were teenagers, officials said, some wearing clothes adorned with Muslim slogans, and were apparently attempting to repeat earlier successes at capturing weapons from police and army posts.
One group of militants armed with pistols, shotguns, knives and wood planks attacked a police post in Songkhla province but were beaten back. Other raids occurred at about five posts in nearby Yala province, where attackers were dealt a similar defeat.
But in a third province, Pattani, a larger group of militants armed with assault weapons carried out assaults on several police posts, using sophisticated tactics that prompted security officials to conclude that foreign agitators were involved in this attack, Quaglia said.
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