Landmines wound Thai soldiers on Cambodian border

BANGKOK, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Two Thai soldiers stepped on landmines along the Cambodian border on Monday, the army said, three days after a brief exchange of fire near the disputed 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple.

The army rangers, each of whom lost a leg, were patrolling on Thai territory and stepped on the mines only 400 metres (430 yards) from where soldiers from both sides clashed on Friday, Colonel Sirichan Ngathong told Reuters.

"We don't know whose mines they were, but we have dispatched a mine expert to check out the area," she said.

Phnom Penh said the mines, believed to have been laid years ago by the Khmer Rouge, were on Cambodian soil.

Bangkok and Phnom Penh have accused each other of unprovoked aggression in Friday's contact between two border patrol units in which two Thais and one Cambodian were wounded.

It was the first clash since the two sides agreed in August to withdraw most of the 1,000 troops that had been facing off for a month near the historic Hindu ruins that sit on the jungle-clad escarpment dividing the countries.

Their foreign ministers agreed in July to find a peaceful end to the spat, which centres on 1.8 square miles (4.6 sq km) of scrub near the temple.

The argument started when protest groups seeking to overthrow the Thai government criticised Bangkok's backing of Cambodia's bid to list Preah Vihear as a U.N. World Heritage site.

Tensions have eased considerably since Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's victory in late July in a general election in which the temple, and nationalism, featured heavily.

Both sides have claimed Preah Vihear for decades. The International Court of Justice awarded it to Cambodia in 1962, and the ruling has rankled in Thailand ever since. (Reporting by Nopporn Wong-Anan; Editing by Ed Cropley and Sanjeev Miglani)