Friday, June 05, 2009 BANGKOK: At least 17 people were killed when a bus hit a tree in southern Thailand Friday, police said, suggesting that the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. About a dozen other passengers were injured when the bus, part of a convoy of 12 vehicles, ran off the road at dawn in southern Krabi province on its way from central Samut Prakarn to the southern province of Phang Nga, they said."As of now 12 people died at the scene and five more have died in hospital, but many of those who are wounded are in a serious condition," said police commander Colonel Thakoon Netpukana."I'm sure that the accident was caused by the driver falling asleep. The road is flat and straight," he said. More than 40 people had been travelling in the bus, which was completely destroyed by the crash, he said.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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