Blasts kill 14 in Thailand
Muslim insurgents blamed for attacks that targetted tourist spots
HAT YAI, THAILAND— Suspected Muslim insurgents staged the most deadly coordinated attacks in years in Thailand’s restive south, killing14 people and wounding 340 with car bombs that targeted Saturday shoppers and a highrise hotel frequented by foreign tourists.
A first batch of explosives planted inside a parked pickup truck ripped through an area of restaurants and shops in a busy area of Yala city, a main commercial hub of the southern provinces, said district police chief Col. Kritsada Kaewchandee. About 20 minutes later, just as onlookers gathered at the blast site, a second car bomb exploded, causing the majority of casualties. Eleven people were killed and110 wounded by the blasts. “This is the worst attack in the past few years,” said Col. Pramote Promin, deputy spokesman of a regional security agency. “The suspected insurgents were targeting people’s lives. They (chose) a bustling commercial area, so they wanted to harm people.” Separately, a blast occurred at a highrise hotel in the city of Hat Yai, in the nearby province of Songkhla, that officials initially attributed to a gas leak and said was unrelated to the attacks blamed on insurgents. The midday explosion at the 405- room Lee Gardens Plaza Hotel, where throngs of Malaysian and Singaporean tourists spend their weekends, killed three people and caused about 230 injuries, mostly from smoke inhalation, said police Lt. Puwadon Wiriyawarangkun. In Saturday’s third incident, suspected Muslim militants detonated a motorcycle bomb 50 metres away from a local police station in Pattani province’s Mae Lan district, wounding one police officer, according to police Col. Tharet Kaewla-eiad. More than 5,000 people have been killed in the three provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala since an Islamist insurgency flared in January 2004. They are the only Muslim-dominated provinces in the predominantly Buddhist country.