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Published on July 4, 2007

Police yesterday shot dead two suspected insurgents attempting to flee a Yarang patrol.

Provincial police commander Maj-General Korkiert Wongworachart identified the two men as Hama Mahsamae, 27, and Mahama-ruding Samae, 28. He said the two refused to stop for police officers and then opened fire at the patrol.

The two men were armed with an automatic rifle and a 9mm pistol, Korkiert said.

The gunfight was the latest in the deep South where violent attacks have been a daily occurrence for the past three years.

Meanwhile, in Narathiwat's Yi-ngor district, two gunmen shot and wounded shop owner Wilai Lampromkoew, 55. She is being treated in a nearby hospital.

These attacks came a day after the government decided to extend a state of emergency for three more months in the three southernmost provinces where more than 2,300 people have been killed since January 2004.

In Saba Yoi district of Songkhla, school-bus drivers Noree Thongkoew, 37, and Charn Pungkoew, 67, were seriously wounded by two gunmen who shot them from behind.

In Chana district, a bomb hidden in the ceiling of a Ban Namwon Elementary public school was detonated remotely, injuring two police assigned to teacher security.

In Tambon Kaluwor in Narathiwat, police paraded seven suspects from a raid on Monday on the Islamiburapha, a traditional Islamic boarding school. The raid followed an explosion. Police seized two handguns, a shotgun, ammunition and explosives and detonators.

The Nation

PATTANI