The first clash on Thursday morning took place near the ancient Ta Muen Thom temple along the border of Thailand's Surin province and Cambodia's Oddar Meanchey province, the AP reported.

Of the six F-16 fighter jets that Thailand readied to deploy along the disputed border, one of the aircraft fired into Cambodia and destroyed a military target, the Thai army said.

THAILAND AND Cambodia have mostly kept heavy weapons out of their long-simmering border disputes. So the sudden violence on the morning of July 24th came as a shock. Cambodian artillery shelled a Thai military base;