As fighting spread to at least six areas along the arcane frontier, Thailand’s military closed crossings between the countries. The fighting spurred at least 40,000 civilians from more than 80 villages near the border to flee to makeshift bomb shelters of sandbags and car tires.

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;