Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose last bloody domestic crackdown on drugs caused an international outcry from human rights groups all over the world, has ordered Thai soldiers on the Thai-Burma border (Thai-Myanmar border), to shoot to kill any traffickers trying to bring drugs into Thailand.

Thaksin said that the Burmese druglords and the Wa troops were producing methamphetamine pills about 20 kilometers from Thailand's border and that Rangoon had been told many times about the locations of these plants, but no action ever followed

The Prime Minister threatened to send Thai troops into Burma (Myanmar) to destroy the methamphetamine drug factories unless Rangoon very fast sorts out its drug problem. We can not allow the Kingdom of Thailand to be flooded by drugs from Myanmar anymore. The Wa Army drugs are gradually killing the Thai children, so we won't show mercy, Thaksin said.

Premier Thaksin's remarks came a few hours after Thai troops killed 7 and wounded 11 heavily armed drug traffickers from the Burmese Wa Army, under control of Burma drug lord and Wa Army leader Wei Hsueh-Kangs, in a holiwood movie style battle along the Thai-Burmese border today.

Thai soldiers said that the strongly armed column of Wa Army soldiers, trying to enter Thailand, were transporting more than one million methamphetamine pills. On approach of the Thai border patrols, the drug caravan immediately opened fire on the Thai soldiers and a violent battle broke out, resulting in 7 dead and 11 wounded. Other wounded Wa soldiers managed to escape and crossed back over the border into Myanmar.

Thailand's Prime Minister said that this latest incident demonstrates that the Burma drug lords and the Wa Army were still intensively trafiicking drugs into Thailand, without any sign of restrain from the Myanmar government, despite the many promises made by Rangoon to Thailand to restrict the trafficking of drugs at the Thai-Burma border.

From now on, if armed drug caravans cross into Thailand, I ordered our Thai border patrols to no more risk their lives, by trying to arrest the traffickers, but simply shoot to kill, Prime Minister Thaksin said.

I have further instructed the Foreign Ministry of Thailand to contact the Myanmar government again to ask them to regulate the movements of the Wa Army's movements into Thailand. But if Burma is too busy with their internal problems, or they just ignore our demands, then Thailand will start handling this problem ourselves, Thaksin said.

The United States has put a $2 million dollar bounty on the head of druglord and Wa Army leader Wei Hsueh-Kang.

Earlier this year, Thaksin had launched a 90-day bloody crackdown on the domestic Thai drug lords as the drug abuse situation in Thailand had become uncontrollable. With 1,612 drug dealers and traffickers killed, he declared victory for Thailand's war on drugs, fighting the Thai drug war the only way the Thais understood, the Thai way.
Drug use and narcotic traffic has been cut by more than by 90 percent.

Thai Police said that during the Thai drug war, they were only responsible for 37 of the deaths, the rest were attributed to inter gang warfare. The high death toll prompted an international outcry from human rights groups all over the world, including the United Nations.