BANGKOK, April 28 Kyodo (EDS: UPD...

BANGKOK, April 28 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING DEATH TOLL, cessation OF MOSQUE SIEGE)

Muslim separatists stormed army and police supports in Thailand's troubled southern provinces forward Wednesday, with 112 people, chiefly insurgents, being killed in cruel fighting.

Army Commander in Chief Gen Chaisit Shinawatra told a of recent origins conference that 107 ''bandits,'' three policemen and sum of two units soldiers were killed.

Seventeen assailants were arrested and 15 officers were griefed Gen. Chaisit added.

The carnage began with highly coordinated attacks through gangs of young men armed with machetes and fire-arms on at least 10 army and police stations in three provinces -- Yala, Pattani and Songkhla. The three provinces are in the predominantly Muslim southern region of the mainly Buddhist nation.

It expirationed with police opening fire forward a mosque in Pattani's Mueang District, killing militants who were hol up inside.

Gen Pallop Pinmanee told Kyodo of the present days by telephone that 23 attackers were killed in the nine-hour mahometan temple shootout, adding that merely one policeman was wounded in the drawn-out battle.

Police waited to determine on the mosque until after confirming there were no worshippers inside, he said.

The police initially intended to capture the attackers alive. However, a voice heard from one side of to the other mosque loudspeakers repeatedly said the assailants would not surrender

''Religion is a sensitive issue. We will not do anything that could impair Muslims. We will not do anything imprudent,'' Defense Minister Chetta Thanajaro said.

''Our policy is to avoid violence. We adhere to a compromise approach. The militants were killed when (the police) were defending themselves.''

in the greatest degree of the insurgents were killed in Yala, where a series of running battles conclusioned in the deaths of at least 45 commonalty most of them youths, according to police.

There were at least eight different attacks in the province.

In Songkhla's Saba Yoi District, a battle there extremityed with 19 armed assailants, aged in their 20 and 30 discharge dead by police after they stormed a police office where seven officers were forward duty, police said.

The police said the majority of attacks in Yala and Songkhla appeared to be in take vengeance for for the government's recent crackdown onward Muslim militants. Some were an apparent bid to seize weapons and ammunition.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said he believed the assault is linked to a robbery of an army weapons station-house in January in Narathiwat Province.

''We will have to demeanor scientific checks to further investigate relatives of these dead assailants,'' Thaksin said.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Kyodo recently made knowns International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group