Palace car ambushed, 2 killed

Army rules out link with royal itineraries

WASSANA NANUAM SIRIKUL BUNNAG

Gunmen attacked a palace vehicle when it stopped to buy fruit at Ban Ba-ngosato in Narathiwat's Rangae district yesterday.

They fired at least 20 rounds from AK-47 assault rifles at the Land Rover, killing the two occupants _ a retired highway police captain and a police mechanic.

Pol Capt Jareuk Suwannasuan, 62, and Pol Snr Sgt-Maj Sathaporn Klamplob, a mechanic at the Highway Police Division, died instantly in the Land Rover.

They had driven from the Taksin Ratchanives palace, where Her Majesty the Queen is staying, to pick up 80kg of longkong they had ordered on Tuesday from the house of Ahama Paluwae.

Mr Ahama said he was in the orchard picking longkong when he heard a volley of gunshots in front of his house.

He denied he had ever told anyone that some palace officials would come to pick up the fruit in the morning.

His younger sister, Mareeyah Paluwae, said she did not see anyone arrive in the vicinity before th! e two officials came to the house, implying that the assailants had been lying in ambush long before the officials arrived.

Ms Mareeyah said the shooting began when the Land Rover was backing up into her house.

The bullets pierced more than 20 holes in the vehicle's body.

Ayeesah Paluwae, another house resident, said the two officials always came to buy longkong from her orchard whenever the Queen came to stay at the Taksin Ratchanives palace.

Fourth Army commander Lt-Gen Pisarn Wattanawongkeeree ruled out any link between the attack on the palace vehicle and royal itineraries.

The two officials went to buy fruit on their own, he said, and the Queen was not scheduled to go out of the palace yesterday.

More than 200 police and military troops, two armoured vehicles and a helicopter were sent out to track down the ambushers.

In Pattani, hundreds of students and staff at the Prince of Songkhla University were seeking a transfer ! out of the province following the killing of a student at the universi ty over the weekend.

Rector Padoongyot Duangmala said up to 300 students, most of them in the first year, had resigned or asked to move to other academic institutes, mostly private universities in Bangkok.

Scores of faculty members and university officials had also sought a transfer, the rector said. However, most of them still had to continue working at the university and only 16 of them could leave.

All nine foreign language programmes of the university, however, could be greatly affected as more than 20 foreign teachers had been told to leave Pattani by their embassies since the violence began to escalate, said Mr Padoongyot.

The rector added that the university would be closed after the examination on Saturday and the management was looking for ways to send students home safely.

The Central Islamic Committee of Thailand, meanwhile, called on Deputy Education Minister Aree Wong-araya to give Muslim people a say in education management in! Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat provinces, particularly in the development of Islamic ponoh schools.

Some education zones in the three provinces did not have even a single Muslim on their education development boards and directors of most public schools there also were not Muslim, the Islamic committee said.