Word: thai
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Thai army platoon fanning out around the village of Wiang Haeng in northern Chiang Mai province was expecting a routine patrol. That overcast afternoon in late March, the soldiers were securing the area for a special visit by Thailand's Queen Sirikit. But along the Thai-Burmese border?where insurgents, smugglers and drug dealers hold sway?little can be taken for granted. Suddenly, the Thai troops were under fire. The enemy: a unit of the United Wa State Army, a tribal force from Burma. Allied with the government in Rangoon and notorious for its dominance of the narcotics trade...
...confrontation with the Wa was more than just another border skirmish. To the Thais, Queen Sirikit's inability to travel freely in her own kingdom was an affront to their national dignity. Already seething over the Wa's drug trafficking, the Thai army deployed troops and heavy artillery near the border. Burmese soldiers, meanwhile, massed in support of the Wa and for an offensive against other ethnic rebels?fighting that threatened to spill into Thailand. As Bangkok and Rangoon traded accusations, soldiers traded mortar fire. Villagers were evacuated as stray rounds rained down on Thai soil. No civilians were harmed...
...world's spotlight remains on the face-off at the India-Pakistan border. But the 2,100-kilometer Thai-Burmese frontier is almost as tense?even without the shadow of a nuclear war. The clashes have plunged relations between Bangkok and Rangoon to their lowest point in years. Burma's junta has banned visits by Thai officials, expelled Thai workers and closed border crossings, while Thai army officers have accused Rangoon of warmongering...
...This is one of Asia's most combustible areas. The Thai-Burmese border is home to dozens of tribal groups whose conflicts, hatreds and alliances are so complex and layered as to be nearly unfathomable. Some want an independent state, others merely the independence to fund their wars against Rangoon or each other by trafficking heroin, opium and amphetamines. Both the Burmese and the Thais use these rebels as proxy warriors against each other. But army border units from the two sides are also known to cooperate to make money from illegal logging and mining. With so many vested interests...
...Attack Clashes between Burmese troops and rebels spilled over into Thailand and forced the closure of the border between the two countries. Tensions increased after an armed gang attacked a school bus in Ratchaburi province, 20 km from the border, killing three children and wounding another 12. Some 300 Thai troops and police were sent to the border area to search for the gunmen, believed to belong to a Karen insurgent group. PHILIPPINES Rescue Tragedy An attempt by Philippine troops in Zamboanga del Norte to rescue two American hostages held for more than a year by Abu Sayyaf rebels went...