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Southeast Asia
Motorcycle bomb kills 2, wounds 16 in Thai south
2006-11-20
SUNGAI KOLOK, Thailand (Rooters) - A bomb hidden in a motorcycle killed a soldier and a civilian and wounded 16 others on Monday in a restive southern Thai town popular with Malaysian tourists, police said.

Police and witnesses said the bomb, near a hotel and train station in Sungai Kolok, was detonated by a signal from a mobile telephone -- a favored tactic of local Muslim militants.

"I saw a large pool of blood next to the damaged motorcycle where the bomb was hidden, and a circuit of a mobile phone," said a Reuters reporter.

Witnesses said the blast killed a Buddhist soldier and a Muslim laborer in the town, popular with Malaysian men for sex tourism. Other soldiers and passers-by were wounded.

Police later detained three Muslims for questioning after witnesses said they had fled the scene.

The blast follows a third visit to the region by new Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, who has sought to reverse the iron-fist policies of his ousted predecessor, Thaksin Shinawatra, in a bid to pacify the Malay-speaking Muslim south.

Sungai Kolok, which borders Malaysia, has seen a series of deadly bombings in almost three years of separatist Muslim insurgency against the predominantly Buddhist central government.

More than 1,800 people have died in the violence, which analysts blame on a complex mixture of Muslim insurgency, organized crime and official corruption.
Posted by:anonymous5089

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