Militants set four South schools ablaze

INSURGENCY SOLDIERS KILLED

Militants set four South schools ablaze

POST REPORTERS

Insurgents burned down four schools in Pattani and Yala provinces Tuesday and yesterday in what authorities believe were revenge attacks for the killing of three key rebel suspects by state security forces last Friday. Three soldiers were also shot dead in insurgent attacks yesterday.

A building of Ban Tasa school in Muang district of Yala was set aflame yesterday. The fire destroyed five classrooms, a library and a computer room.

The arsonists broke one classroom window to get into the building, poured petrol on learning materials and set fire to them to start the blaze, police said.

''The school has intensive security measures in place but the arsonists managed to find our weak spot,'' said the province's education zone 1 director Atasit Ratanaklaw.

The total damage was put at more than three million baht, including student savings kept at the building under a course on the sufficiency economy which were destroyed by fire.

Police believed the attack was carried out in revenge for the deaths of three key rebels who were killed in a gunfight with security troops last Friday.

Ban Chamao Samton school in Pattani's Sai Buri district also fell victim to another group of arsonists yesterday.

Police said the attack was apparently made in retaliation against the temporary siege of Ban Chamao Samton village by security officers hunting for suspected militants.

On Tuesday, two schools and a bus stop shelter were also set alight in separate attacks in Pattani's Panare district, police said.

Two classrooms at Ban Nam Bor school were destroyed, while a fire at Ban Tro Hak school burned down one classroom.

Also in Pattani, three soldiers were shot dead yesterday morning while standing guard at a school in Kapho district.

Meanwhile, some 200 government troops raided a village in Nong Chik district where rebels were believed to have gone into hiding after they ambushed a group of policemen returning from security duty at a polling station on Sunday. Twenty-four suspects were rounded up for questioning.

In Narathiwat, village defence volunteer Mueyoh Hama, 49, was killed in a drive-by shooting yesterday as he was returning to his home in Sungai Padi district from Malaysia.

In the same province, police yesterday took Niloh Nomae, a suspected member of the Runda Kumpulan Kecil (RKK) separatist group, to re-enact the crimes he was alleged to have committed at 13 different locations.

Police said the suspect and his accomplices had planted bombs and murdered many state officials and civilians over the past two years.