Insurgent Killed İn Bomb Blast İn Thai South: Police

A suspected insurgent was killed in Thailand's Muslim south Tuesday morning when a bomb he was carrying exploded prematurely, according to police.



Lieutenant Kattiya Samthong, an investigator at Raman district police station, told the Anadolu Agency that police discovered the suspect's remains at the explosion site in Yala, one of three provinces plagued by a resurgence of violence since 2004.



"When police arrived on the spot, they found a three-meter wide and one-meter deep hole caused by the explosion, with fragments of a gas tank and the bomb spread around, as well as human body parts."



He added, "we also found an identity card of a man who resided in another district of Yala province."



Police officers said the bomb carrier was a separatist insurgent who intended to hide the explosive at a place that would later be visited by security officers inspecting the area.



The blast comes amid a resurgence of violence after an investigation committee, composed of community and religious leaders and police and military officers, concluded earlier this month that four young Muslim men were killed by mistake by a military team March 25.



On April 13, a couple was shot by unidentified attackers while working in a rubber plantation in Yala, one day after attackers stormed two houses in neighboring Narathiwat province and killed four people.



The March 25 incident provoked widespread anger in the provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani, where a separatist insurgency -- rooted in decades-old grievances against the Thai state's treatment of Muslims – resurfaced in January 2004.



Since then, violence has continued unabated, leaving more than 6,000 people dead and around 11,000 others injured.



www.aa.com.tr/en - Krung Thep