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Southeast Asia
Coordinated attacks in southern Thailand kill 14, injure 340
2012-04-01
An update on yesterday's coordinated attacks, including the bombing of a major tourist hotel in another province which was earlier believed to be a gas line explosion.
Suspected Muslim terrorists insurgents staged the most deadly coordinated attacks in years in southern Thailand, killing 14 people and injuring 340 with car bombs that targeted Saturday shoppers and a high-rise hotel frequented by foreign tourists.

The first batch of explosives planted inside a parked pickup truck tore through an area of restaurants and shops in a busy area of Yala city, a main commercial hub of Thailand's southern provinces.

Around 20 minutes later, while onlookers gathered at the scene, a second car bomb exploded, causing most of the casualties. Eleven people were killed and 110 wounded by the blasts.

Col Pramote Promin, spokesman for a regional security agency, said, "This is the worst attack in the past few years. 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 high-rise hotel in the city of Hat Yai, in the nearby province of Songkhla, that officials initially attributed to a gas leak and believed to be unrelated to the attacks blamed on terrorists insurgents.

The midday bombing at the large Lee Gardens Plaza Hotel, where many Malaysian and Singaporean tourists spend their weekends, killed three people and caused about 230 injuries, mostly from smoke inhalation. After inspecting the hotel's underground parking lot, investigators found a severely damaged sedan and a hole created by the explosion.

Regional police chief Lt Gen Jakthip Chaijinda said the Hat Yai incident "is likely related to what happened in Yala and might have been plotted by the same group of insurgents."

Police said when the blast that occurred at the underground level of the hotel, it ruptured the building's cooking gas pipeline, causing a fire that sent smoke up into the upper floors and trapping many people in their rooms until rescuers came. One of the fatalities was identified as a Malaysian tourist.

The hotel was also targeted in 2006, when four people including a Canadian man were killed by six bombs that had been planted on Hat Yai's main street. Hat Yai and the rest of Songkhla province have generally been spared the violence that has wracked the three southernmost provinces.

In Saturday's third incident, suspected Muslim terrorists militants detonated a motorcycle bomb 50 meters away from a local police station in Pattani province's Mae Lan district, injuring one police officer.

The Yala bombings happened on a road that was previously heavily guarded by checkpoints and closed to traffic to ensure safety. But the security was lifted in 2011 after local vendors said the measures harmed their businesses.

Early accounts of the Yala attack cited three blasts with explosives planted in cars and motorcycles but officials later corrected themselves.
Posted by:ryuge

#3  The Yala bombings happened on a road that was previously heavily guarded by checkpoints and closed to traffic to ensure safety. But the security was lifted in 2011 after local vendors said the measures harmed their businesses.

Attacks that kill civilians should probably be met with collective punishment. Assuming the perps can be identified, their homes should be demolished and their assets seized to compensate the victims.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2012-04-02 00:01  

#2  That's how it usually works with Muslims. If a response to an attack is not brutal enough, they escalate.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2012-04-01 02:51  

#1  Ypu want peopke dead, OK, we'llkill rou, satisfied?
We are.
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2012-04-01 01:15  

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