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Six Rioters Killed in Southern Thailand

Mon Oct 25, 6:49 PM ET

By DANIEL LOVERING, Associated Press Writer

BANGKOK, Thailand - Security forces firing guns and tear gas quashed a riot by about 2,000 Muslim youths in southern Thailand on Monday, leaving six people dead and dozens injured.

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The trouble in Narathiwat province began with a protest at the district police station demanding the release of six men accused of stealing weapons belonging to the local self-defense volunteer force, even though officials said they had been transferred to the provincial capital

A crowd, estimated at 2,000, began throwing rocks and debris at the building, and overturned a military truck. The rioters tried several times to storm the building and a nearby district office.

Police and soldiers fired water cannons and tear gas into the crowd, while also shooting in the air to scatter the rioters.

Six people were killed, said Sirichai Pattananutaporn, Narathiwat's public health officer. The official Thai News Agency said about 44 were injured, 14 of them security personnel.

Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Palangun Klaharn said 200 to 300 people were arrested and would be prosecuted. A curfew was announced for Thailand's three southernmost provinces — the only ones in the Buddhist-dominated country with Muslim majorities.

The southern region has been plagued by almost daily violence since January, when suspected Islamic separatists raided an army camp, killing four soldiers and stealing hundreds of assault weapons.

Southern Muslims have long complained about poverty and discrimination, especially in education and employment.

Since January, more than 360 people in the provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat have been killed, many of them security personnel or local officials.

Authorities have blamed a series of bombings and drive-by shootings on a renewed separatist insurgency, which had died down after a government amnesty in the 1980s.


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