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| Southeast Asia |
| One killed, 70 injured in S Thailand bomb blasts |
| 2008-11-05 |
| (Xinhua) -- A female village head was killed and more than 70 others were injured in three bombings on Tuesday noon near a district office in Thailand's southern province of Narathiwat. The remote-controlled bombs went off simultaneously at an open air fruit market and a tea shop near the Sukhirin district office, where about 300 local officials, civil servants of varied levels, were attending a monthly meeting, according to the Thai News Agency. The dead woman, identified as Amporn Pui, was a village head in Sukhirin district, one of hundreds of local village and sub-district heads and civil servants who were leaving the meeting. The bombings appeared to be aimed at the participants. The first bomb was detonated by a mobile phone at fresh market near the district office entrance. Police estimated that the primary 50-kilogram bomb was hidden in a car, which was engulfed in flames after the explosion. Shortly after the first explosion, the second bomb went off at a tea shop nearby the district office, and a third bomb was planted into a motorcycle and was detonated near the tea shop, possibly intentionally targeting those who were fleeing the scene of the first two explosions. Three cars were destroyed while a number of other vehicles were damaged. It was the largest attack in months in the Muslim-majority South, occurring a week after Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat visited the region where more than 3,500 people have been killed since violence erupted anew in early 2004. |
| Posted by:Fred |