Bombs kill four in Muslim southern Thailand http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-08-02T112621Z_01_BKK339615_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-THAILAND.xml&archived=False
Wed Aug 2, 2006
By Surapan Boonthanom
SONGKHLA, Thailand (Reuters) - Militants detonated a bomb by a bridge on the main railway line through Thailand's rebellious Muslim south on Wednesday, killing three policemen and leaving thousands of travelers stranded, officials said.
A soldier also died in a booby trap left by militants at a temporary camp for engineering troops building a school in the region, where more than 1,300 people have been killed in a two-year Muslim separatist insurgency. The railway bomb damaged the bridge enough to halt all rail traffic on the mail line running from the Thai-Malaysian border to Bangkok. Thousands of passengers were stranded on five trains forced to stop in nearby stations. "We hope to finish the repair work this evening and all southern trains should resume service tomorrow morning," southern rail traffic control chief Thanongsak Pongprasert told Reuters.
Militants placed a 5 kg (11 lb) mine by the bridge as a car carrying four rail patrolmen passed by. Three of the officers died instantly and the other was wounded, police said.
"The front wheels triggered the mine and it exploded," police Lieutenant Colonel Sompien Eksomya said. "They have been watching police routine for some time and knew exactly when the patrol car would arrive."
Two bodies were found near the bridge and the other was found 50 meters (yards) away in the river, he said.
Overnight, the army said there were 128 bombs, arson attacks or shooting incidents across Thailand's three southernmost provinces, although nobody was killed.
INFERNO
In the most serious incidents, small bombs exploded outside two karaoke bars and militants torched a rubber warehouse in the troubled province of Pattani.
Between 100 tonnes and 500 tonnes of rubber sheet were destroyed in the seven-hour warehouse inferno, intensifying worries about supply disruptions from the world's largest natural rubber producer and helping push up prices in Thailand and Japan.
"Some overseas buyers have phoned me already this morning asking about the incident," a rubber trader in Singapore said. "They are worried. This could have a very big impact."
Pracha Taerat, governor of Narathiwat, where militants set off bombs at the bars, said security officials had found a time bomb earlier on Tuesday set to explode at 8 p.m. (1300 GMT).
"There are no casualties because we stepped up security against such attacks," Pracha told Reuters by telephone.
One of the bombs exploded outside a bar in Sungai Kolok, a border town packed with bars and hotels popular with Malaysian tourists. The town has suffered bomb attacks in the past.
Buddhist Bangkok has tried a variety of ways to end the violence in the south, where 80 percent of the population are Muslim and ethnic Malay. It has sent in thousands of troops and promised millions of dollars in development aid, but the violence has persisted. Security analysts say there is no evidence to suggest foreign groups are involved.
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