[Khaosod] Jittraporn Banjong was near the checkout counter when two men with covered faces entered the 7-Eleven where she was working. They fired a gunshot and told everyone to get down before pouring gasoline all over. The four employees escaped through the back door just as the fire spread through the convenience store at a gas station in Pattani province. They later learned the attackers placed an improvised explosive device in front of the gas station to attack responding authorities.
The arson and bombing was among 19 similar attacks to strike three southern provinces Wednesday night, killing three people and wounding five others. In addition to military and police targets, many of the attacks targeted infrastructure such as utility poles.
Not far from the convenience store were 13 representatives of the junta's interim cabinet, who had arrived earlier for unprecedented, high-level talks with local religious leaders about the ongoing peace talks and economic development in the region.
A spokesman for the Internal Security Operations Command, a special military unit that answers only to the prime minister, dismissed a link between the attacks and the Bangkok delegation’s visit. Col. Peerawat Sangthong said, "There was nothing to indicate it was because of the visit."
Among the three killed Wednesday night were two security guards at an automobile showroom in Songkhla province. They were gunned down by militants who then bombed the building. Another blast reportedly hit the showroom again Thursday morning. No one was hurt.
The third to die was a soldier who was shot when four gunmen on two motorcycles opened fire on a military facility in Pattani province.
In Pattani, 12 attacks hit targets including a military facility, utility poles and police box. Six blasts hit Songkhla’s Thepha and Chana districts, and one explosion was reported on a road in Narathiwat's Bacho district.
Continued on Page 47
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.