Thai Jets Bomb Cambodia as at Least 5 Die in New Wave of Fighting

Each side accused the other of firing first. The hostilities came weeks after President Trump had cast himself as a peacemaker in the decades-old border dispute.

Thai Jets Bomb Cambodia Amid Deadly Border Dispute

Residents near the Thai-Cambodian border fled as new hostilities left several people dead. The two countries accused each other of firing first, challenging a cease-fire agreement that has been in place since July.CreditCredit…Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Thai F-16 fighter jets bombed Cambodian targets on Monday, as a decades-old border dispute that President Trump claimed to have ended erupted in a new salvo of fighting that killed at least five people and displaced hundreds of thousands.

Officials in Thailand and Cambodia each accused the other side of firing first, just as they had in July, when a deadly armed conflict between them raged for five days.

With the airstrikes, the Thai military said it was responding to an attack by Cambodia that killed at least one Thai soldier and injured eight others in a border province earlier in the day. The Thai Army described one of its targets as a casino near the border that Cambodia used as a base for drones.

Cambodian officials said four civilians had been killed and 9 others injured in two border provinces. It was not immediately clear if the airstrikes had caused the casualties.

Hun Sen, the de facto leader of Cambodia, urged restraint. “All frontline forces have to remain patient,” he wrote on his Facebook page on Monday. “The redline of responding has been already set,” he said, without elaborating.

Thailand’s prime minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, told reporters in Bangkok that talks were futile because of Cambodia’s actions and that “Cambodia must comply to our conditions in order to stop the fight.”

“It’s too late. We’ve been patient,” Mr. Anutin said. When asked about the agreement to resolve the dispute signed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in October, with Mr. Trump in attendance, he said: “I don’t remember that anymore.”

Gen. Chaipruak Doungprapat, the Thai Army chief of staff, said his goal was to “render Cambodia incapable of military action for a long time.”

As of 6 p.m. local time, Thailand was shelling Cambodia, according to Maly Socheata, a spokeswoman for the Cambodian Defense Ministry.

The fighting came nearly a month after Thailand pulled out of peace talks with Cambodia. Mr. Trump has taken credit for ending the earlier fighting, in which at least 40 people were killed and hundreds of thousands were displaced. But this week’s hostilities were a reminder of how intractable the rift between Cambodia and Thailand is.

The neighbors share a nearly 500-mile long boundary but large parts of it are undefined; some of the most fraught areas are home to centuries-old temples.

Monday’s attacks followed an exchange of fire the previous day that did not appear to be deadly. Still on Sunday, officials ordered residents in four Thai provinces along the border — Buriram, Surin, Sisaket and Ubon Ratchathani — to evacuate to shelters. The Thai military said that roughly 438,000 people had done so. Cambodian officials said on Monday that tens of thousands on their side had moved away from the border.

Malaysia’s leader, Anwar Ibrahim, who with Mr. Trump brokered the cease-fire in July, called on both Thailand and Cambodia to exercise restraint.

Our region cannot afford to see longstanding disputes slip into cycles of confrontation,” Mr. Anwar said in a statement.

Tensions had ratcheted up on Sunday, when Thailand said that Cambodian troops had opened fire in the Thai province of Sisaket, prompting Thai forces to respond. Two Thai soldiers were injured, the Thai authorities said.

Cambodia’s Defense Ministry accused Thailand of firing first, into the Cambodian province of Preah Vihear, using handguns, B40 rocket launchers and 60 millimeter mortars. It said Cambodian forces contacted the Thais and demanded an immediate halt to the firing and that Cambodia had not fired back. The Thai military, it said, then stopped firing within 15 minutes.

Many people sitting on blankets under a canvas tent with suitcases and other belongings around them. — Evacuees at a temporary shelter in Buriram province in Thailand on Monday. Credit…Sarot Meksophawannakul/Thai News Pix, via Agence France-Presse – Getty Images

The next day, the Thai Army said that Cambodia opened fire with small arms early in the morning in the Nam Yuen district of Ubon Ratchathani Province, killing at least one soldier and injuring eight others.

Later, it said that Cambodian forces had fired rounds from Soviet-era BM-21 multiple barrel rocket launchers toward Thai civilian areas in Buriram province, prompting the Thai airstrikes. It said there were no reports of casualties from the rocket attack.

Maj. Gen. Winthai Suvaree, the Thai Army spokesman, said the F-16 airstrikes hit three Cambodian military installations near the border, including a radio tower near the Preah Vihear Temple. Cambodia did not immediately address the aftermath of the strikes but said four civilians had been killed and nine others injured by Thai fire.

On Monday evening, the Thai military said that it was expecting Cambodia to fire more BM-21 rockets into Thai territory.

Thailand’s deployment of F-16s to bomb Cambodian military targets in July was the first time it had used fighter jets in combat in three decades. It was one factor that brought the five-day border war to a halt — Thailand has a much better-equipped military than Cambodia, which has virtually no operational air force.

The ensuing cease-fire was brokered by the United States and Malaysia. In October, Thailand and Cambodia agreed to let observers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, monitor the truce. On Monday, Cambodia said it planned to request an Asean investigation into the latest hostilities.

Post Views: 31