PHUKET: A shootout in Phuket's tourist heartland on a Sunday afternoon that left one man dead and two wounded is likely to trigger an immediate police crackdown on guns on Phuket.

Most of the shooting took place in and around a resort and guesthouse section of the popular Kata-Karon west coast beach district.

The first exchange of shots at the entrance to a resort left a traffic officer wounded three times but able to fire back, hitting one of two men as the pair fled.

Two more shots broke glass panes in the resort's breakfast dining area.

The two men abandoned their motorcycle and attempted to escape on foot but were quickly cornered by police in a party-built apartment block, where one man was shot dead and the other seriously wounded.

Somkit Kongtin, 21, who is today recovering from surgery in Patong Hospital, is believed to have been the man who shot traffic policeman Husthaporn Thongkhawbour, 36, twice in one leg and once in the other.

Killed in the exchange of fire that followed was Adisorn Thongyon, 18. He formed the less weighty half of a petty criminal pairing that Phuket police had come to know as ''Fat and Thin.''

Sunday's shooting followed the slaying in northern Phuket of a man and a woman the previous week by a drugs-crazed gunman. The drugs queen gang leader and her husband are still being pursued.

Phuket's senior police were meeting today in the wake of Sunday's shooting.

Police killings of suspects are rare and so are cases of police being shot on Phuket. A detailed investigation can be anticipated.

Senior Phuket police have lately been playing down the prospect of professional hit-men attempting assassinations during the lead-up to Thailand's national elections on July 3, yet the past two weeks have produced a spate of worrying killings involving gun-carrying criminals.

The fact that Sunday's shootings took place as tourists strolled the same streets of Kata-Karon will also alarm Phuket's administrators.

Having been told that ''Fat and Thin'' were coming his way on a yellow and white Fino motorcycle from Nai Harn, Officer Husthaporn followed them to Kata-Karon.

There the pair turned in at the Alpina Phuket Nalina Resort and Spa in Ket Kwan Soi, which runs between Patak Road and Patak Thai Na Road, the road behind Club Med Phuket.

Officer Husthaporn blocked the exit. Realising that there was no way out except past the policeman, Somkit pulled the .38 and fired, hitting the officer twice in one leg.

As the pair passed the officer and his motorcycle, he fired back, hitting Somkit in the leg. Somkit returned fire, hitting the policeman a third time in a leg, and spraying other shots into the resort.

Soon after, the pair abandoned the motorcycle in the street and a trail of blood dripped from the vehicle turned into red footprints - easy to follow for pursuing police, called in via radio by Officer Husthaporn.

In a second exchange of fire at a partly constructed apartment block, one man was shot dead and the other seriously wounded.

Doctors who operated on Officer Husthaporn at Phuket International Hospital in Phuket City yesterday removed two of the three bullets and said he would achieve a full recovery.

His wife Alisa, due to give birth to the couple's second daughter next month, was relieved to hear the good news.

The reason why ''Fat and Thin'' decided to fight it out with a lone officer yesterday remains unclear, but the pair had been targetted as suspects for drugs and petty theft.