Thai forces kill militants in Muslim south raid

BANGKOK, March 2 (Reuters) Thai security forces killed five militants today in a rare successful raid on a jungle training camp in the rebellious Muslim south, the military said.

After a tip off from villagers and a five-day hunt, a 22-strong paramilitary team found about 20 men at the camp in Narathiwat, one of the three provinces hit by three years of separatist violence, Colonel Narongwit Chusanggitan said.

''After 30 minutes of clashes, we found five bodies of theirs and we all are safe,'' Narongwit told Reuters by telephone.

The raid in a region where more than 2,000 people have been killed in the separatist violence turned up two M-16 rifles stolen in a raid on an army camp three years ago which marked the start of the latest separatist struggle in the far south.

The camp, on a hill in deep jungle, consisted of shelters, a small open-air classroom and combat training area, Narongwit said.

The raid was a rare success for Thai security forces, which are often ambushed or attacked with roadside bombs while on patrol in a region which was an indepedent sultanate until annexed by largely Buddhist Thailand a century ago.

Narongwit said the militants belonged to an off-shoot of a group called Barasi Revolusi Nasional (BRN), or National Revolutionary Front, established in the 1960s when many people were moved into the region from other parts of Thailand.

The BRN off-shoot, called BRN Coordinate, is believed to be the largest separatist network with several thousand members, security analysts and military sources say.

''They were in the black uniforms that the BRN people wear, so we believe that they belong the BRN,'' Narongwit said.

At the camp, security men found eight Thai identity cards, five of which belonged to the dead men, army spokesman Colonel Acra Tiproch said.

In the nearby province of Yala, 100 veiled Muslim women and children blocked a bridge to the capital for three hours today demanding the release of a man suspected of being involved in a bomb attack on a service station this week.

The crowd dispersed after women paramilitary troopers were deployed to deal with them and police refused to free the man, a Muslim man in his 30s.

He was arrested yesterday after forensic tests matched the blood stains found at the station and his home, police said.

REUTERS SP ND1658