BANGKOK, June 4 (UPI) -- A trio of gunmen wearing military uniforms and armed with M-16 assault rifles opened fire on a school bus near the Thai-Myanmar border Tuesday, killing two Thai children and seriously wounding 12 others, police and hospital officials said.
The attack in Ban Kha district of Thailand's Ratchaburi province, 81 miles southwest of Bangkok and about 12 miles from the Myanmar border, happened as the bus, carrying 27 students, was headed for the Ban Kha Wittaya primary school at 7 a.m.
"The gunmen stood by the road and opened fire on us with automatic weapons," said bus driver Thongmon Kemthong. "After we passed them they fired on us from the rear."
The two children killed in the attack, a boy and a girl, were both 13 years old, officials said.
A Thai military spokesman said it was unknown who carried out the attack but he was sure they were not Thais.
"We know they are from outside Thailand," said Lt. Gen. Surapan Phoomkaeo. "We must find out which foreign force did this."
An official at Ratchaburi Hospital said six of the 12 students wounded in the attack required immediate operations.
The hospital itself was seized in January 1999 by a group of 10 ethnic Karen rebels from the so-called God's Army from Myanmar. The raiders held several hundred hostages for two days before the hospital was stormed by Thai troops who killed all the Karen gunmen.
Several rebel armies, including those of the Karen, Shan and Wa, are active along the Thai-Myanmar border, complicating relations between Bangkok and Yangon.
