Six soldiers were killed and six others wounded as at least 20 separatist militants stormed a military outpost in Rangae district of southernmost Narathiwat province in Thailand on Wednesday night, reports said Thursday. An estimated 20 assailants had charged through the front gate of Task Force 38 camp before opening fire with war weapons at soldiers guarding there, triggering several 10 minutes of a fierce gun fight. As the battle raged, unit commander Krit Khampirayan called for reinforcements but the access roads was strewn with spikes which hindered back-up forces from getting into the area. "They want to create very serious disturbance. During the attack, there were about 80 troops guarding the camp but they were not fully aware because it was a recess after dinner," a source at Fourth Region of the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) told local media. This attack was considered as one of the boldest moves by the separatists in a long time. It took place on the day that Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thuagsuban and Army Chief Prayuth Chan-ocha visited the area and just two days after Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva returned from the region. The source at Fourth Region ISOC disclosed that the attackers were mobilized from several areas of the southern border provinces because insurgent members have increasingly decreased recently with the implementation of "win-the-heart" policy and military raids. While retreating, the insurgents also set fire to two army residences and took some M16 assault rifles as well as Uzi machine guns with them. January 2011 marked the seventh anniversary of the 2004 military depot raid which has been considered as the resurgence of insurgency in the region. Since then altogether over 4,400 local people have been killed and more than 7,200 others injured in some 10,400 violent incidents instigated by suspected secessionists in the Muslim-dominated southernmost provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat which were once independent sultanate of Pattani before being annexed by predominantly Buddhist state in 1909.