Teacher patrol unit wiped out; seven soldiers die in Yala

YALA, June 15 (TNA) - At least seven Royal Thai Army soldiers were killed and one wounded Friday in a roadside bombing ambush by presumed insurgents in this southern border province.

A teacher protection unit was entirely wiped out.

The eight-man teacher protection unit was enroute to a school when the bomb exploded near their vehicle. The assailants, waiting in ambush, then opened fire on the soldiers, killing all but one, before leaving the scene and strewing spikes along the route to obstruct the response of government security forces.

Local authorities called in a helicopter to evacuate the slain soldiers to a provincial hospital.

It was the second ambush in less than a month. Twelve soldiers were killed in a similar fashion on May 31, in an incident which was billed as the single most deadly attack on security forces in the three-year violence in the insurgency-wracked region.

More than 2,300 people have been killed in the continuing violence in the predominantly Muslim southern border provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat.

A bomb explosion Thursday night at a community football stadium in Pattani's Yaring district during a match wounded five police officers assigned to provide security to spectators. Police blamed insurgents for the attack.

TNA