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BANGKOK — The U.S.-trained Thai military’s F-16 warplanes bombed Cambodia on Thursday as Cambodia blasted truck-mounted Soviet-era artillery rockets across a disputed border region with its Southeast Asian rival, killing 12 Thai civilians, including an 8-year-old boy.
Thailand and Cambodia blamed each other for the fighting and accused each other of targeting civilians.
Six armed U.S.-built F-16 jets dropped at least two bombs, pounding “Cambodian military targets on the ground,” Royal Thai Army spokesman Col. Ritcha Suksuwanon told reporters.
“We have used air power against military targets as planned,” Col. Ritcha said without elaborating on the sites.
Cambodia reportedly said Thailand’s F-16s dropped two bombs “where Cambodian forces are stationed to defend the nation’s territorial integrity,” but it gave no details about damage or casualties.
Hours after the bloody exchange, Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen reportedly told Thailand not to “boast of your superior military power, or think of invading,” because Cambodia was “fully prepared for combat.”
“You will face the most severe retaliation,” the Cambodian leader said. “We won’t just resist; we will strike back.”
Tens of thousands of panicked villagers on both sides of the border began evacuating the zones or hiding in bunkers. Steel-helmeted Thai army forces in armored personnel carriers hurtled down highways toward the disputed region known as the Emerald Triangle jungle.
Each side claims the other started the latest clash.
Cambodia positioned Soviet-designed BM-21 artillery on trucks hidden among jungle and scrubland at the border and blasted ground-to-ground rockets into Thailand.
The fighting along Cambodia’s northern border with Thailand coincides with a dangerously destabilizing breakup between the two nations’ dynastic, billionaire, ruling families after decades of tight interlocking personal relations.
A day before the F-16 bombing and artillery assaults, a Thai soldier lost a foot after stepping on a land mine. Two other soldiers alongside him were also wounded.
Another land mine blast recently caused similar injuries to three Thai troops. One had a foot blown off. Thai officials said the soldiers were walking on the accepted Thai side of the border.
Cambodia, however, said Thai soldiers crossed into Cambodia without permission, veered from agreed patrol routes described in a bilateral memorandum of understanding signed in 2000 and did not heed Cambodia’s repeated warnings that the jungle alongside the paths was mined from wars between Pol Pot and Vietnam’s occupation army during the 1980s.
“The explosion occurred inside Cambodian territory, not Thailand’s, and involved old mines left from past conflicts, not newly planted ones,” said Cambodian Defense Ministry spokeswoman Lt. Gen. Maly Socheata.
Thai officers said that they found several more land mines hidden near the blast sites.
“The Thai military’s recent allegations — especially those made by Lt. Gen. Boonsin Phadkhang of the 2nd Army Region — that Cambodia deliberately laid new land mines resulting in injuries to Thai soldiers, are not only unfounded but recklessly irresponsible,” Cambodia’s Phnom Penh Post said in an editorial.
“No credible investigation has been made public, no transparent evidence has been presented,” the paper said.
Bangkok said the land mines were new, Russian-made and recently secretly planted by Phnom Penh.
Thailand is a non-NATO U.S. ally and fought alongside U.S. forces during the regional Vietnam War.
Bangkok hosts the Pentagon’s biggest international military exercise in Asia each year: Cobra Gold.
The Chinese play a broader role in Cambodia, funding huge investments, training Cambodia’s military, and developing the country’s infrastructure, including ports and shipping canals.
Thailand’s heavily financed 360,000 active-duty army, air force and navy are three times the impoverished Cambodian military forces.
In addition to Thailand’s U.S. F-16 warplanes, older F-5s, Cobra attack helicopters and U.S. Black Hawk transport choppers, Bangkok wields about a dozen Swedish Gripen fighter jets.
Thailand also has weapons and equipment that come from Israel, Russia and elsewhere, including 60 Chinese VT-4 tanks, which augment dozens of older U.S. tanks.
Cambodia depends on an aging stockpile of about 200 Chinese and Soviet tanks and a few dozen Chinese and Soviet helicopters.
Both Buddhist-majority countries appealed Thursday to the United Nations and other international forums and bilateral partners for support.
Both have made territorial claims over a handful of prized Hindu temple ruins in the Emerald Triangle, which could be lucrative for tourism.
Locals on both sides have been clustering around the scattered ruined temples of Tamoan Thom, Tamoan Touch and Ta Krabei.
Visitors sometimes taunt and needle the other side by chanting traditional curses, their national anthems and nationalist political slogans.
The Emerald Triangle covers the junction of northern Cambodia, eastern Thailand and southern Laos.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing was concerned about the heightening hostilities between Cambodia and Thailand.
“China is willing to uphold an objective and fair position and play a constructive role for the harmonious coexistence between Thailand and Cambodia,” Mr. Wang said on July 11.
The latest bloodshed began on May 28 when Thai troops shot dead a Cambodian soldier along the porous border.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra quickly came under fire from hard-liners in her military and government after audio of a conciliatory phone call with her Cambodian counterpart went public. She has since been suspended pending an investigation.
“We understand that only when a new prime minister takes office might there be willingness to resolve these issues,” said Hun Sen, predicting the end of Ms. Paetongtarn’s political career if found guilty.
Hun Sen’s West Point-educated son, Hun Manet, became Cambodia’s prime minister in 2023 on the shoulders of his father, who ruled for decades after defecting from Pol Pot’s anti-U.S. Khmer Rouge guerrillas in the 1970s.
Describing Cambodia’s rocket attack Thursday, Hun Manet said, “In this case, we have no choice but to respond with armed force against this armed invasion.”
Ms. Paetongtarn, serving in a reduced capacity as culture minister while the court decides her fate as prime minister, said she condemns “Cambodia for the use of violence and acts of aggression along the Thai border.”
The firefight, after weeks of stress, blame, resignations and the pending court case against Ms. Paetongtarn, has Bangkok’s razor-thin coalition government teetering on the edge of collapse. Cambodia’s father-and-son regime appears externally more stable.
The crisis follows a spectacular and dangerous political breakup between Asia’s most powerful de facto leaders: Hun Sen and Ms. Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin Shinawatra.
The twice-elected Mr. Thaksin, 76, has long been one of Thailand’s most powerful civilian political leaders.
Thai media describe Mr. Thaksin as the “de facto boss of the Pheu Thai Party,” which is officially led by his daughter, atop an uneasy ruling coalition that includes pro-military parties.
Mr. Thaksin was toppled in a 2006 coup and left the country only to return to Thailand in 2023. He had been sentenced to several years in prison for financial crimes committed during his 2001-2006 administration but avoided being confined to a jail cell after complaining of severe illnesses.
Both countries’ authoritarian de facto leaders and former prime ministers, Thailand’s Thaksin Shinawatra and Hun Sen in Cambodia, and their families are openly warring against each other over public betrayals, lies, threats and leaked confidential audio recordings.
During the firefight Thursday, Cambodia unleashed a morning barrage at various sites, using truck-mounted 122 mm BM-21 multiple rocket launchers that blasted unguided rockets into a wide zone.
The 12 civilians were killed when rockets hit a gasoline station, a hospital and other sites, Thai army reports said.
“The Royal Thai Army strongly condemns the violent actions targeting civilians by Cambodian forces,” the army said.
“Thailand stands ready to defend its sovereignty and protect its people from such inhumane acts.”
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