Are Scam Compounds the Real Cause of Thailand-Cambodia Fighting?

Intense strikes targeted “pig butchering” syndicates on the border.

Soldiers and civilians walk past a destroyed building. September 12, 2025, 12:40 PM Comment icon View Comments ( )

CAMBODIA—By July 28, O’Smach, on Cambodia’s northern border, had become a ghost town. Five days of intense fighting with Thailand, erupting after months of tensions over contested territory, saw more than 260,000 people driven from their homes on both sides of the border. Families streamed out of nearby villages toward makeshift camps. As an older man who stayed behind pointed out shelling damage to his neighbors’ home, a drone appeared overhead, sending him running to the trench he’d dug in his yard.

Not everyone had the chance t

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