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No relief from jihadi rampage in southern Thailand
Six people were killed and nine wounded in a string of weekend shootings and bomb attacks in Thailand's restive south despite government efforts to bring peace to the Muslim-majority region, police said.A homemade bomb exploded on a roadside late Sunday, killing two soldiers and injuring three others, as they drove an army truck in Yala, one of three insurgency-torn provinces bordering Malaysia, a police spokesman said. The soldiers were returning to their army camp after meeting with a group of protesters who had formed a human shield to prevent the military from entering the road leading to a border patrol base. Some 1,000 villagers, mostly women and girls, joined the human shield to demand the government remove 30 border patrol policemen from the base who the locals accuse of killing a Muslim villager a few days ago, the unnamed official said. The meeting ended peacefully hours later as senior provincial officials promised the angry villagers they would relocate the patrol policemen, but the soldiers were bombed on the way back to their base. Earlier Sunday, four people were shot dead and six wounded in a spate of drive-by shootings and simultaneous bomb attacks in the south. In Narathiwat, three bombs went off simultaneously before midnight in and around two karaoke bars. On Saturday, three schools in Yala were totally gutted with another school partially damaged in suspected arson attacks, and Islamic militants ambushed an army convoy heading toward the arson site Sunday, wounding one soldier. The military countered the ambush in an ensuing 15-minute gun battle against more than 10 militants. Local government officials, police, military and Buddhists are often targeted by Islamic militants but Muslims seen as sympathetic to the government are also attacked. Posted by: ryuge 2006-11-06 |
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