Soccer to jehad: Thai team changed their field overnight

Three days after defending their annual county soccer title, the ‘‘All Stars’’ team of Baan Susoe village mounted nine motorcycles and rode 23 km through the night to launch a dawn attack on a security checkpoint.

They planned to steal weapons from the soldiers, local people said, but armed only with machetes against the automatic rifles of Thai troops who had already been tipped off, they didn’t stand a chance.

One of the youths, all aged between 19 and 26, managed to strike a soldier with his blade. The rest were all shot dead before they even got close.

Relatives of one of the dead, Kamaruding Baeprommi, said that he had had the potential to become a soccer superstar for the national team.

“He started playing soccer early and was very good,” said Pitaya Baeprommi, Kamaruding’s elder brother and head of the village Sports club. “He had the potential to become a national superstar so I encouraged him to go into the Army ,” Pitaya said.

Four of the 19 men had also been teachers at an Islamic primary school in the village, local district official Suvej Taepee said.

Residents acknowledged the “All Stars” might well have smoked marijuana, a habit common throughout the impoverished area, but described their friends as “local heroes”, dedicated to Islam as they were to soccer. —(Reuters)