THAI TROOPS AMBUSH MYANMAR DRUG CARAVAN

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thirteen suspected drug smugglers were killed when
Thai troops ambushed a caravan attempting to smuggle some 2 million
methamphetamine "speed" pills across the

border from Myanmar, Thai army officers said Sunday.

One Thai army private was also killed in the 30-minute firefight Friday
night about 6 miles inside Thailand at Wiang Haeng district ofChiang Mai
province, 450 miles north of Bangkok.

A Thai Third Army spokesman said troops along the border had

received intelligence reports that about 2 million methamphetamine pills
were to be delivered and detected a force of ten ethnic Wa troops and 20 of
their porters at the border on Friday afternoon.

The Thai officer said the drug smugglers waited at the border until
darkness. When they crossed into Thailand at about 8 p.m. they were
ambushed by a force of about 18 Thai troops.

The smugglers, some of them wounded, fled back into Myanmar, the country
formerly known as Burma, leaving behind 16 backpacks, each containing about
100,000 methampetamine pills, and a satellite telephone.

They also left behind 13 bodies, most of them believed to be ethnic Wa
porters forced to carry the drugs across the border.

The fleeing smugglers reportedly carried several of the backpacks loaded
with methamphetamines back toward the border, with Thai troops in pursuit.

Thai officers said the gang that carried out the failed smuggling attempt
was believed to be working for the infamous Wei brothers, ethnic Chinese
drug barons who are protected by the 20,000-strong United Wa State Army.

Wei Hsue Gang, the elder of the three brothers, has been indicted by a New
York federal court for allegedly organizing the importation of a large
shipment of heroin into the U.S. in 1987.

The Justice Department has posted a $1 million reward for information
leading to Wei's capture.

The Wei brothers are from the southern Chinese province of Yunnan and were
reported to have worked for the CIA along the Chinese border in the 1960s
before they got into the heroin business.

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and
otherinternational enforcement agencies, the Wei brothers, although still
involved in the heroin trade, have become the leading dealers in
methamphetamines, known in Thailand as "ya bah", or "crazy drug."

The Thai army estimates that 700 million methamphetamine pills, most of
them produced at a string of clandestine jungle laboratories along the
border, were smuggled into Thailand last year.

Despite strong anti-drug efforts in Thailand, the army expects that figure
to grow to more than 800 million of the pills in 2002.

Among the many Thai police and military units trying to stem the flood of
methamphetamines into Thailand is Taskforce 399, which has been trained by
United States Special Forces troops for rapid deployment against drug
traffickers.

The Thai army has been re-defining the roles of other military units
previously involved in anti-insurgency and border patrolling duties to
fight the war on drugs.