Three traffic police officers were injured this evening (Tuesday), one of them seriously, in the roadside detonation of a device, believed to have been planted by southern insurgents, in the Ruesoh district of Thailand’s southern border province of Narathiwat.
The three injured were part of a team of six traffic officers, deployed to a road check-point in Ban Plai Na in Tambon Ruesoh Nok. The improvised explosive device (IED) had been placed at the foot of a roadside tree.
Army troops and police reinforcements were immediately rushed to the scene to help the wounded officers, who were found bleeding and lying on the road. They were rushed to the district hospital, and Pol. Snr. Sgt-Maj. Narongchai Jimakhom, who sustained the most serious injuries, was then flown by a helicopter to Songkhla Nakharin Hospital in nearby Hat Yai.
Today a message, purportedly from the Barisan Revolusi Nasionale insurgent group, was posted on social media threatening to target all defence volunteers, claiming that they “are part of Siam’s armed forces”.
The insurgent group advised all the volunteers to quit or face the consequences.
The message, however, had not been independently verified as authentic at the time of this report.
