Thailand and Cambodia are engaged in an armed clash amid an intensifying dispute over a long-contested stretch of their shared border. The latest violence erupted on Thursday morning near two ancient temples along the frontier between Thailand’s Surin province and Cambodia’s Oddar Meanchey. Cambodia has now asked for UN intervention in the matter and called Thailand a “war-hungry” nation.
According to the Thai army, the fighting began at around 7:35 am when troops guarding the Ta Muen temple detected a Cambodian drone in the area. Shortly after, six armed Cambodian soldiers, one reportedly carrying a rocket-propelled grenade, approached a barbed-wire fence near a Thai military post. The Thai army claims Cambodian troops initiated the firefight, which escalated quickly.
The Thai side further accused Cambodia of a “targeted attack on civilians,” saying two BM-21 rockets struck a local community in Surin’s Kap Choeng district, injuring three civilians.
Cambodia, however, blamed Thailand for starting the clash. “The Thai military violated the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Cambodia by launching an armed assault on Cambodian forces stationed to defend the nation’s sovereign territory,” said defence ministry spokeswoman Maly Socheata. She added that Cambodian forces responded in self-defence, in line with international law, to repel the Thai incursion and protect the country’s sovereignty.
The skirmish marks the latest flare-up in a decades-long dispute over the Emerald Triangle, a geopolitically sensitive region where the borders of Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos converge. The area is home to several ancient temples and has been the site of repeated clashes, most notably over 15 years ago and again in May this year, when a Cambodian soldier was killed.
