| ||||
TAK, Thailand -- Separatist ethnic Karen fighters have launched one of their biggest attacks on the Myanmar army since the mid-1990s, leaving about 30 dead.
A Thai military source told Reuters news agency about 100 fighters from the Karen National Union (KNU) raided the large military camp, opposite Thailand's Phop Phra district of Tak province, 420 km (260 miles) northwest of Bangkok.
A Karen villager who fled over the border to Thailand told Reuters that four civilians living in the camp were killed and several wounded.
The KNU is one of several ethnic armies fighting for independence from the Yangon military government.
The Thai army source said around 30 people were killed in the attack, but did not say how many were Myanmar troops or soldiers of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), which split from the KNU in the mid-1990s to become allies of the Myanmar army.
The fighting, which began shortly before dawn and lasted over three hours, spilled into Thai territory when mortar shells fired at fleeing KNU soldiers landed over the border, damaging several houses and wounding a Thai man.
The Thai army said it had detained more than 30 KNU soldiers who had crossed into Thailand after the raid and would disarm them before sending them back into Myanmar.
Thai soldiers were also preparing to move about 1,000 villagers on the Thai-Myanmar border in Tak province further into Thailand.
The KNU, accused by Yangon of being heavily involved in the production of opium and metamphetamines, has carried out sporadic hit-and-run raids on Myanmar army units since its main mountain-top base was overrun by troops in late 1994.
Over a week ago, the KNU attacked a Myanmar army outpost near the Thai border, killing six soldiers. Thai army sources said some 80 KNU fighters launched the night attack on Myanmar troops near the border town of Myawaddy.
