Thai F-16 fighter jets bombed targets in Cambodia on Thursday, both sides said, as weeks of tensions over a border dispute escalated into clashes that killed at least two civilians.
Of six F-16 fighter jets that Thailand had prepared to deploy along the disputed border, one fired on Cambodia and destroyed a military target, the Thai military said. Both countries accused each other of starting the conflict early Thursday.
“We used air power against military targets as planned,” Thai military deputy spokesman Richa Suksuwanon told reporters.
Thailand also closed its border with Cambodia.
Cambodia’s defense ministry said the jets dropped two bombs on the road and that it “strongly condemns the reckless and brutal military aggression of the Kingdom of Thailand against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cambodia.”
The clashes came after Thailand recalled its ambassador to Cambodia late on Wednesday and said it would expel the Cambodian envoy in Bangkok, after a second Thai soldier in a week lost his foot to a landmine that Bangkok says was recently planted in the disputed area.
Thai residents in the border province of Surin fled to shelters built of concrete and fortified with sandbags and car tires as the two countries exchanged fire.
“How many bullets were fired? Countless,” an unidentified woman told the Thai Public Broadcasting Service (TPBS) as she hid in a shelter, with occasional gunfire and explosions heard in the background.
For more than a century, Thailand and Cambodia have disputed sovereignty over various unmarked points along their 817-km-long land border, leading to conflict over several years and at least a dozen deaths, including during a seven-day artillery exchange in 2011.
Tensions flared again in May after the killing of a Cambodian soldier during a brief exchange of fire, which escalated into a full-blown diplomatic crisis and has now sparked armed conflict.
