More than 100 Muslim militants were killed by government troops in southern Thailand Wednesday. The militants were killed after launching early morning attacks on army and police posts in the provinces of Yala, Pattani, and Songkhla, near the Malaysian border. At least 30 of the rebels were killed when troops raided a mosque where they were holed up, reports the Agence France-Presse. Only five security personnel were reported to have died in the clashes. Police were tipped off about the raid in advance and were waiting for the militants, reports The Age of Melbourne, Australia. Some of the militants had guns, but most were armed only with machetes, said Lieutenant General Proong Bunphandung, the chief of police for the south. Thailand’s Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra sought immediately to portray the attacks as localized criminal acts that were not connected to Islamic militancy in the region. He says the attacks were motivated by crime, reports Reuters. “We will uproot them, depriving them of a chance to allude to issues of separatism and religion. In the end, they were all bandits,” Thaksin said. Full Story
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