A man wanted over the killing of two Thai marines died in a gunfight during a bloody night that claimed five more lives in Thailand’s Muslim-majority south, police said yesterday.
The suspected insurgent, Alinsan Nikaji, was killed after 100 police and soldiers sealed off the village of Tanyong Limo as they searched for a militant hideout, police said.
A 20-minute gunfight broke out after they found four suspected rebels inside a home in the village. Alinsan, 25, was killed during the battle.
Thai authorities had a 1,000,000 baht (US$30,300) reward out for his arrest over his role in a dramatic hostage-taking that ended in the beating deaths of two marines in the village in 2005.
Two other men, each with 500,000 baht rewards on their heads, were also arrested, police said.
The hostage crisis in Tanyong Limo was one of the most dramatic incidents in the four-year insurgency that has claimed more than 3,300 lives in Thailand’s southernmost provinces.
Hundreds of veiled women and young children faced down heavily armed soldiers for 18 hours, while militants held two Thai marines hostage inside the village’s mosque.
The women only allowed the soldiers to enter the village after the marines had been beaten to death and the hostage takers had escaped.
The latest raid on Tanyong Limo came during a bloody night of attacks across the southern region, along the Malaysian border.
Two Muslim construction workers, aged 24 and 29, were shot dead late on Friday in an ambush in Songkhla Province, while a 50-year-old Buddhist woman was killed in a drive-by shooting in nearby Yala, police said.
A 48-year-old Muslim man was gunned down late on Friday inside his home in Narathiwat Province, while a 23-year-old Muslim rubber tapper was shot dead in the same province early yesterday.
Separatist unrest broke out in January 2004 in the south, which was an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until mainly Buddhist Thailand annexed it in 1902, provoking decades of tension.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS