A gunman described as a soldier angry over a financial dispute has killed two people and then gone on a far bloodier rampage in north-eastern Thailand, shooting as he drove to a busy mall where shoppers fled in terror.<\/p>\n
At least 21 people were killed in all, 31 were injured and others were believed to be still inside the building as more gunshots rang out.<\/p>\n
Defence Ministry spokesman Lieutenant General Kongcheep Tantrawanich said Sergeant Major Jakrapanth Thomma, 32, was behind the attack in Nakhon Ratchasima, a hub for Thailand’s relatively poorer and rural north-eastern region.<\/p>\n
Much of the shooting took place at Terminal 21 Korat, an airport-themed mall filled with colourful Lego sculptures, a merry-go-round and huge replicas of landmarks from around the world.<\/p>\n
Video taken outside the mall showed people diving for cover as shots rang out mid-afternoon on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Many were killed outside the mall, some in cars, others while walking.<\/p>\n
The killings began about 3:00pm (local time) on Saturday when the soldier opened fire in a house before moving to an army camp and then to the mall, posting messages on Facebook as he went.<\/p>\n
Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters at the scene that one member of the security forces was killed and two wounded in the raid.<\/p>\n
As he spoke, a series of explosions and further shooting echoed from the Terminal 21 shopping centre.<\/p>\n
Police closed off streets around the mall and kept journalists behind a security cordon.<\/p>\n
After the raid, Reuters video images showed one casualty being wheeled out to an ambulance.<\/p>\n
Another staggered from the building bare chested as he was helped onto a stretcher.<\/p>\n
Nattaya Nganiem and her family had just finished eating and were driving away when she heard gunfire.<\/p>\n
“First I saw a woman run out from the mall hysterically,” said Ms Nattaya, who shot video of the scene on her phone.<\/p>\n
“Then a motorcycle rider in front of her just ran and left his motorcycle there.”<\/p>\n
Ms Nattaya did not know the full extent of the carnage until she arrived home. When she learned of the death toll, she fainted.<\/p>\n
“I can’t believe this is happening in my hometown,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I mean, this shopping mall, we go there almost every other day.”<\/p>\n
Facebook removes suspect’s account<\/p>\n
It was unclear how many shoppers and workers remained inside the shopping mall after soldiers and police had earlier escorted hundreds of trapped people to safety, Lieutenant General Kongcheep said.<\/p>\n
“It was frightening because I could hear the occasional gunshot \u2026 we waited a long time for the police to come and help us, many hours.” said Suvanarat Jirattanasakul, 27, her voice trembling after she emerged.<\/p>\n
The mall was busy with shoppers on a long weekend for the Buddhist Makha Bucha holiday.<\/p>\n
Thai media said the suspected shooter had worked at an army base close to Nakhon Ratchasima, which is about 250 kilometres from the capital Bangkok.<\/p>\n
Before the attack, Jakrapanth had posted on his Facebook account that he was out for vengeance \u2014 but he did not say for what.<\/p>\n
CCTV footage from inside the centre posted on social media showed the gunman dressed in black and wearing a mask, his gun slung over his shoulder with no sign of other people around.<\/p>\n
Facebook said it had removed the suspect’s account.<\/p>\n
“There is no place on Facebook for people who commit this kind of atrocity, nor do we allow people to praise or support this attack,” a Facebook representative said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Major shootings are rare in the South-East Asian country other than in the far south, where a decades-old insurgency persists.<\/p>\n
‘We ran to hide in the toilets’<\/p>\n
Mr Anutin said a doctor was shot while helping an injured person.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of people were evacuated from the mall in small batches by police while they searched for the gunman.<\/p>\n
“We were scared and ran to hide in toilets,” said Sumana Jeerawattanasuk, one of those rescued by police.<\/p>\n
She said seven or eight people hid in the same room as her.<\/p>\n
“I am so glad. I was so scared of getting hurt,” she said.<\/p>\n
Shortly before midnight, police announced they had secured the above-ground portion of the mall, but were still searching for the shooter.<\/p>\n
Mr Anutin said there were no more bodies left inside, but added, “we don’t know whether there are any additional injuries or deaths or not”.<\/p>\n
Some shoppers remained trapped in the mall, presumably in the below-ground portion.<\/p>\n
“We are worried for those who are still trapped inside. Some still couldn’t come out,” he said.<\/p>\n
Lieutenant Colonel Poonsap Prasertsak, a senior police commander for the region, said police were in touch with some of those still trapped.<\/p>\n
“We told them to stay calm, stay still and keep their heads down,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A gunman described as a soldier angry over a financial dispute has killed two people and then gone on a far bloodier rampage in north-eastern Thailand, shooting as he drove to a busy mall where shoppers fled in terror. At least 21 people were killed in all, 31 were injured and others were believed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2662,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-world"],"views":85,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2660"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2663,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660\/revisions\/2663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}