Wounded İn Series Of Attacks İn Thai South

A series of three attacks in Thailand's Muslim south left a police officer and eight civilians wounded in Pattani province Tuesday.



The back-to-back incidents in Khok Pho district started when gunmen on motorcycles rode up to a motorcycle repair shop, opening fire on its owner and a customer, according to The Nation.



An unmarked police vehicle headed to the site was then hit by a motorcycle bomb, causing an explosion in which no one sustained injuries. 



A hidden explosive went off later, wounding a police officer and six defense volunteers who had arrived at the scene.



A suspect identified as Sakareeya Sakam was arrested in a blockade in a Khok Pho village, with security officials recovering 12 fake license plates and around 100 rounds of M-16 ammunition. 



A unnamed police source told The Nation the three attacks were well-planned by insurgents, who had planned on striking the Muang district during a festival, but could not access the location.



The newspaper also cited an unnamed security source as saying Sakareeya – suspected of being behind a car bomb last year in nearby Narathiwat province -- was being held at a military barracks in Pattani. 



Narathiwat and Pattani are among three southern provinces -- where 80 percent of the population is of Malay Muslim origin – that have been facing a rejuvenated separatist insurgency since January 2004. The conflict has seen more than 6,000 people killed – mostly civilians - and around 11,000 injured.



The area was an independent Islamic sultanate with great religious influence in the Southeast Asian Muslim world until it was incorporated into greater Siam after a 1909 Anglo Siamese agreement.



While several Muslim groups started a guerrilla war against the Thai state amid attempts to control Islamic boarding schools in the 1960s, the situation quietened down at the end of the 1980s and the "Southern problem" was considered solved.



However, in January 2004, a new wave of attacks against Thai military, police and Buddhist monks shook the Thai government.



The civilian government of former premier Yingluck Shinawatra began a process in 2013 to restart peace dialogue with the insurgents, but it was overthrown in a coup last May.



In the wake of the May 22 coup, the Thai junta announced its will to continue the official dialogue. Some insurgent groups, however, are reluctant to join as political autonomy has been excluded from the talks.



www.aa.com.tr/en - Ankara