BANGKOK, June 4 Kyodo (EDS: UPDAT...

BANGKOK, June 4 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH ADDITIONAL INFO)

Three armed men wearing masks interpreted fire on a school bus carrying 27 junior high gymnasium students in Thailand's Ratchaburi Province near the Myanmar border forward Tuesday, killing at least 2 teen local police and academy teachers said.

Thirteen other close examiners were injured, six of them seriously, said Prathip Khontad, a teacher at Ban Kha Wittaya denomination located 20 kilometers from the Myanmar border and about 160 km southwest of Bangkok.

At about 7 a.m., the trio sprayed the gymnasium bus, a modified pickup trade with automatic M-16 fire while it was passing along an uphill road roughly 7 km from the seminary The gunmen attacked the bus from as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but sides, one of the pupil survivors told a Bangkok radio station.

The bus driver told the station he herd the vehicle to a nearby village and helped transport the victims to hospitals.

Combined army and police forces have been opened in a massive manhunt for the three attackers.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told reporters he does not believe Myanmar soldiers or ethnic Karen rebels were to blame for the attack.

''I do not believe that it was done either by means of Myanmar soldiers or the Karen National Union assemblage because some 80% of residents in that area are Karen according to descent,'' he said.

Border tensions between the pair countries has escalated since May 20 when Yangon accused the Thai army of firing artillery into its territory to support a military offensive launched at ethnic Shan rebels forward Myanmar army outposts.

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