School kids shot in bus attack


Hundreds of Chiang Mai students take part yesterday in a function entitled ‘Extending love from Northerners to Southerners’. The Tha Phae old city wall sports a banner with messages of encouragement from school students to residents of the violence-hit de
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Gunmen opened fire on a military bus full of primary students, injuring five, one of them seriously.
The incident took place late on Wednesday evening in Narathiwat's Bacho district as 86 students were returning from a visit to the zoo in Songkhla province, police said.Sakchai Petchkongthong, director of the Ban Ai Soreng elementary school, said the incident was "quite disturbing" for the students. He decided to postpone final examinations for the students indefinitely. It was not clear if the attackers had known that students were in the bus. Authorities appeared to be hinting the attack was carried out by Muslim separatists from the deep South. Army spokesman Colonel Akara Thiproj said the army condemned the attack and suggested that militants were to blame. "This is not the kind of tactics that are supposed to be employed by those who claim to be fighting for the people," he said. Separately, two rangers suffered injuries from a roadside bomb attack during their routine patrol in Tambon Tanaoputeh in Yala's Banang Sata district. They were part of a 10-man unit assigned to the restive region. Meanwhile, police detained Adul Meena, 25, a resident of Tambon Riko in Narathiwat's Sungai Padi district for questioning about the February 18 attack that saw some 50 locations, mostly soft targets, bombed and set on fire by militants. He was taken to the Fourth Army's Forward Command Headquarters in Pattani for more questioning, according to a source who declined to be identified. In Yala's Tambon Yupoe, Nimu Daleh, 36, survived an attack on his life when a gunman riding pillion on a motorbike pulled up and fired three bullets at Nimu as he was purchasing rubber sap from a local villager. In Pattani, police found the bullet-riddled body of an unidentified man. He was said to have been killed several days ago, before his body was dumped on the roadside. The Nation Narathiwat
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