Casualties are mounting in Thailand's troubled southern border
region as a bomb exploded in Yala province Saturday morning,
injuring a soldier, while three villagers were wounded in a
shooting by a suspected insurgent in Pattani Province.
Yala police were quoted by the Thai News Agency as saying that
the five-kg bomb was hidden in a potted plant and exploded in front
of a school building in the provincial seat, injuring a soldier who
was on patrol duty.
Police investigators concluded that suspected insurgents
detonated the bomb by remote control at the time the patrol unit
stopped by.
The injured soldier was Pvt. Thaksin Kamnoi, 22, who suffered
facial and neck wounds.
Violence also occurred late Friday after three villagers in
Pattani's Yaring district were shot by an unknown gunman.
The victims were identified as Sulgifli Bilhem, 22, Haji Maelae,
22, and Makori Samae, 36. They were driving their motorcycles on
their way home from a teashop. Police are investigating the
incident.
Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat are the country's three southern
border provinces plagued by violence related to an ongoing
insurgency which has claimed nearly 2,000 lives since it resumed in
early 2004.
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(Xinhua News Agency March 10, 2007)
