4 members of family killed in ambush in Thai south

By Max Constant

BANGKOK (AA) - Four members of a family were killed and another injured in an ambush in Thailand’s Muslim majority south Thursday.

A deputy-investigator at the Rueso district police station in Narathiwat province told Anadolu Agency, “a number of people opened fire on the pick-up driven by Somchai Thongchan, a deputy village head, and carrying five members of his family.”

Police Lt-Col. Kriangsak Kamolsawan said, “the vehicle lost its balance and overturned on the side of the road.”

Thongchan, his wife, his 8-year-old son and another relative were killed.

“His 12-year-old daughter was injured and is now being treated at the hospital and another of his daughters is safe,” Kamolsawan added.

All the assailants fled the scene.

Police believe the ambush could have been either an attack resulting from a personal conflict or an operation related to the insurgency that has been raging for decades along Thailand's border with Malaysia.

Schoolteachers, administrators and civil servants are often seen as targets by the insurgents who consider them as representing the Thai state.

The southern insurgency -- active in Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani -- is rooted in a century-old ethno-cultural conflict between Malay Muslims living in the region and the Thai central state where Buddhism is considered the de-facto national religion.

Armed insurgent groups were formed in the 1960s after the then-military dictatorship tried to interfere in Islamic schools, but the insurgency faded in the 1990s.

In 2004, a rejuvenated armed movement -- composed of numerous local cells of fighters loosely grouped around the National Revolutionary Front, or BRN -- emerged.

After the military seized power in May 2014, the junta continued the overthrown elected civilian government’s policy of holding peace talks with insurgent groups.

A recent report on the south by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, has claimed, however, that the talks have “foundered” as both sides “prefer hostilities to compromise”.

“The National Council for Peace and Order [NCPO], which seized power in the 2014 coup, professes to support dialogue to end the insurgency but avoids commitment,” the report said, referring to the ruling junta by its official name.