|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Monday, 15 November 2004 |
 |
|
 |
World | |
| News Business Features Editorial Security Politics World Letters Sports Obituaries
|
Blasts in southern Thailand kill one injure at least 29 BANGKOK, Sunday (AFP) Five blasts struck Thailand's Muslim-majority south within 24 hours, killing a Buddhist man and wounding 29 people, police said Saturday. Sixty-year-old food vendor Sompong Nookhao was killed in a blast at a market and seven injured, including a seven-month-old baby with shrapnel wounds, after a device was triggered during busy early morning shopping. Three of the injured were in a critical condition after the blast at 7:00 am (0000 GMT) in the Than To district of Yala province but the baby was out of danger, according to police. "A remote control bomb was placed on the ground at a food stall inside the market," said Lieutenant Colonel Jarin Charowan, deputy superintendent of Than To police. At least six people were injured in a later bombing at 3:00 pm at a resting spot for taxi drivers at Bukita village in the neighbouring province of Narathiwat. It was the fifth bombing within 24 hours in the region after three apparently coordinated bomb attacks hit Narathiwat evening. At least 16 people were injured, four seriously, in the first blast in a crowded restaurant in the provincial capital of Narathiwat. The device was allegedly planted by two men posing as customers who rode off on a motorcycle. Two other bombs went off within two hours of the first but nobody was injured, according to officials. Tensions have increased in the region since 87 Muslim protesters died on October 25 after security forces broke up a riot at Tak Bai in Narathiwat. Most of the victims died of suffocation after hundreds of men were arrested, tied up and piled into the backs of trucks. More than 540 people have died during a separatist-inspired insurgency since January this year. Analysts say separatists, religious extremists and disaffected Muslims who have long complained of discrimination by the Thai authorities are behind the violence. Security forces have flooded into the region amid signs that attacks by militants have switched from security forces to "soft" Buddhist targets, including Buddhist workers and monks. But security forces continued to sustain casualties. Police sergeant Koyrudin Moroh, 32, was shot three times Saturday by motorcycle gunmen after taking his wife to work in the southern province of Pattani. He survived and is being treated in hospital. In his weekly radio address Saturday, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra vowed a two-pronged approach of negotiations and a crackdown to try to solve the problems in the region. "The situation in the south deteriorated last night as there were many attacks," Thaksin said. "We are willing to use peaceful means but we have to use both negotiations and a crackdown since there are four to five civilians killed every day," he said. |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
Produced by Lake House |
