At least 15 people have been killed in an attack on a security checkpoint in southern Thailand, including a police officer and many village defence volunteers, according to an army spokesman.
The incident late on Tuesday was the worst single attack in years in a region where a separatist campaign has killed thousands.
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The attackers, in the province of Yala, also used explosives and scattered nails on roads to delay pursuers.
Colonel Pramote Prom-in, spokesman for the army, said on Wednesday that "12 were killed at the scene, two more died at the hospital and one died this morning". Five others were wounded, he told AFP news agency, adding that the attackers took M-16 rifles and shotguns from the checkpoint.
"This is likely the work of the insurgents," he told Reuters news agency. "This is one of the biggest attack in recent times."
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, however, as is common with such attacks.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha said the perpetrators must "be brought to justice", according to Defence Ministry spokesman Kongcheep Tantravanich.
A decade-old separatist campaign in Thailand's largely ethnic Malay-Muslim provinces of Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat has killed nearly 7,000 people since 2004, says Deep South Watch, a group that monitors the violence.
The population of the provinces, which belonged to an independent Malay Muslim sultanate before Thailand annexed them in 1909, is 80 percent Muslim, while the rest of the country is overwhelmingly Buddhist.
The region is under martial law, heavily policed by the military and sometimes staffed with trained civilian volunteers, with residents and rights groups accusing them of heavy-handed tactics.