Thai F-16 jets hit Cambodia as border tensions escalate

The Thailand-Cambodia border fight

- Agencies

Thailand scrambled F-16 fighter jets to bomb targets in Cambodia on Thursday after artillery volleys from both sides killed at least 12 civilians, as border tension boiled over into rare armed conflict between the Southeast Asian countries.

Both blamed each other for starting a morning clash at a disputed area of the border, which quickly escalated from small arms fire to heavy shelling in at least six locations 209 kilometres apart along a frontier where sovereignty has been disputed for more than a century.

The first clash on Thursday morning happened in an area near the ancient Ta Muen Thom temple along the border of Thailand's Surin province and Cambodia's Oddar Meanchey province. Thailand said its fighter jets hit at least three Cambodian army bases near the border in separate airstrikes, and reported that rockets fired from Cambodia killed several civilians.

The Thai military blamed Cambodian soldiers for firing first, and later accused them of a “targeted attack on civilians”, saying two BM-21 rockets had hit a community in Surin province, wounding three people.