.jpeg)
Bangkok/Phnom Penh – December 8, 2025
Thailand carried out airstrikes on Cambodian military targets Monday morning, the first aerial attacks in the two countries’ long-running border dispute, after clashes left one Thai soldier dead and four wounded. The escalation has shattered a fragile U.S.-brokered ceasefire signed just two months ago and forced tens of thousands of civilians on both sides to flee their homes.
The fighting erupted around 5 a.m. near disputed ancient temples in Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani province and Cambodia’s Preah Vihear and Oddar Meanchey provinces. Thai army spokesman Major General Winthai Suvaree said Cambodian troops opened fire first with small arms, machine guns, mortars, and artillery. In response, the Royal Thai Air Force struck several Cambodian command posts, weapons depots, and supply routes. Thai officials also accused Cambodia of launching BM-21 Grad rockets toward civilian areas in Buri Ram province, though no casualties were reported there.
Cambodia flatly denied starting the violence. Defense Ministry spokeswoman Lieutenant General Maly Socheata said Thai forces attacked first, firing tank rounds at the centuries-old Tamone Thom temple and other positions near the UNESCO-listed Preah Vihear temple. She insisted Cambodian troops did not return fire. Local officials in Oddar Meanchey reported villagers fleeing gunfire near Tamone Thom and Ta Krabei temples.
By midday, Thailand’s Second Army Region reported that approximately 35,000 Thai citizens had been evacuated from border districts, with more than 385,000 additional residents across four provinces ordered to temporary shelters. On the Cambodian side, families in several villages abandoned their homes for safer ground deeper inside Preah Vihear and Oddar Meanchey.
The violence follows a smaller exchange of gunfire on Sunday that wounded two Thai soldiers and comes after Thailand suspended the October ceasefire agreement last month, citing a landmine explosion that injured several of its troops—an incident Bangkok blamed on Cambodia.
The ceasefire had been a high-profile diplomatic achievement for U.S. President Donald Trump. In October, Trump personally co-signed the joint declaration alongside Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet in Kuala Lumpur, announcing billions of dollars in new trade deals as part of the accord. The agreement required both militaries to pull back heavy weapons, clear landmines, and accept ASEAN observers. Cambodia even nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.
That truce had ended a brutal five-day war in July that killed 48 people and displaced 300,000. The underlying dispute dates back more than a century to colonial-era border maps drawn by France, which ruled Cambodia at the time. Thailand and Cambodia have never agreed on the exact demarcation around a string of ancient Khmer temples, most famously Preah Vihear, which the International Court of Justice awarded to Cambodia in 1962—a ruling Thailand has never fully accepted.
Monday’s airstrikes mark a dangerous new phase. While both countries have exchanged artillery and small-arms fire in previous flare-ups, neither had used combat aircraft since the 2011 clashes that brought the dispute to the United Nations Security Council.
ASEAN chair Malaysia called for immediate restraint and offered to mediate. The United Nations and several Western embassies urged both governments to return to dialogue. Former Cambodian strongman Hun Sen, still a powerful voice as Senate president, posted on social media urging calm and accusing Thailand of trying to provoke Phnom Penh into retaliation that would collapse the peace process.
As night fell, the border remained tense. Thai F-16s and Gripen jets continued patrols overhead, while Cambodian troops reportedly reinforced positions around Preah Vihear temple. With nationalist sentiment running high in both capitals and families sleeping in school gymnasiums and temples far from home, the fear of a wider war—one that could pull in regional powers and undo months of careful diplomacy—has suddenly become very real.
