SOUTHERN VIOLENCE

Army to quell unrest 'next year'

POST REPORTERS

Army chief Gen Anupong Paojinda has set the army an ambitious target of quelling the southern violence and bringing the area under control by next year, an army source said yesterday.

Gen Anupong wants to settle the problems before his tenure comes to an end in 2010.

According to the source, Gen Anupong's timeline announcement is part of a strategy to strengthen soldiers' motivation and change their current mindset, which is that the situation cannot be improved for the time being and will take decades to solve.

''Despite the tough task, it is necessary to set the troops a goal,'' the source said. ''Otherwise they will lack a sense of purpose under the mistaken impression the violence will drag on without any effective remedy for a couple more decades.

''It is important to set deadlines so that the soldiers reach the desired goal within a fixed timeframe.''

Meanwhile, army spokesman Acra Tiproch said more than 100 items of military equipment were seized during a raid yesterday on a militant training camp in the Tawey mountain range, which covers four districts of Narathiwat.

The training camp was previously used to plot a weapons heist at a Narathiwat army depot in 2004.

Col Acra added that police and soldiers had stepped up security patrols on the section of the Sankalakhiri mountain range bordering Yala and Narathiwat and the Malaysian border.

This follows a spate of violent attacks since Sunday night in Narathiwat and Pattani.

In Yala, religious teacher Abdulmana Masae, 55, was shot dead on his way to do some errands in Muang district yesterday morning.

Also in Yala, a policeman on patrol was injured in an ambush and shoot out with the the attackers in Kabang district yesterday afternoon.

Two suspects were later detained.

The failure of main electricity lines from Yala power station caused a two-hour blackout in 13 districts of Narathiwat on Monday night, prompting tighter security against possible strikes following a series of apparently coordinated attacks in the province since Sunday.

Sombat Santijaree, the governor of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat), said the repair work might take a couple of days during which power reserves from Pattani would re-supply nearly 90% of the affected areas of Narathiwat.

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