A string of bomb and gun attacks have killed two people in southern Thailand and wounded three others, a senior military spokesman says. The attacks took place in 11 districts in Narathiwat, Pattani and Songkhla provinces near the border with Malaysia late on Wednesday.

Start the conversation, or Read more at The Mercury. </s> Two suspected insurgents have been reported dead after a series of apparently coordinated attacks rocked 15 separate locations in Thailand's southern border provinces Wednesday.

The attacks occurred between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. local time in the restive Malay Pattani region's Narathiwat, Pattani and Songkhla provinces, according to the Thailand's The Nation , which cited local police reports.

In twelve attacks reported in Narathiwat and Pattani, grenades were fired or hurled at military personnel, police stations, and villagers' homes. Suspected insurgents also opened fire on a unit of troops. A bomb reportedly killed two attackers in Songkhla province when it fell and exploded before they reached their target.

A low level separatist insurgency has persisted in Thailand's Muslim south for decades but intensified in the early 2000's, with attacks in Bangkok and Phuket blamed on southern militants. On August 11 and 12 last year, a wave of bomb and incendiary device attacks killed at least four people and injured more than 30, including about a dozen foreign nationals. Unlike Wednesday evening's attacks, those had targeted areas popular with tourists such as Phuket and the resort town of Hua Hin. </s> In this photo taken late on April 20, 2017 members of a forensic unit inspect the scene of a bomb blast in Thailand's southern province of Narathiwat. Two suspected insurgents have been reported dead after a series of apparently coordinated attacks rocked 15 separate locations in Thailand's southern border provinces Wednesday.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Time. </s> Suspected insurgents mounted 13 simultaneous attacks in three of Thailand’s southernmost provinces late Wednesday, and two of them were accidentally killed in a bomb explosion, officials said.

At least 10 attacks involved bombs or grenades, while the others were shootings, according to official information.

There were 13 attacks in all – seven in Narathiwat, three in Pattani and three in Songkhla – officials in those provinces of the Thai Deep South told BenarNews.

The two suspects were killed in a blast in Saba Yoi, a district in Songkhla province. Elsewhere, a security volunteer was shot and injured as he guarded a railway station in Sungai Padi, a district of Narathiwat, officials said.

“As far as we learnt from a Saba Yoi district official, the two dead tried to plant a bomb and it went off, killing them,” an official with the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), told BenarNews on condition of anonymity.

The string of bombings and shootings were the first attacks in Thailand’s predominantly Muslim and Malay-speaking Deep South since 23 coordinated bomb blasts and arson attacks by suspected insurgents rocked the region on April 7, taking out utility poles and causing power and internet blackouts.

Since the start of the year, 30 people have been killed and 38 others injured in violence blamed on insurgents in the Deep South.

During that time, Thailand’s military government has been negotiating with MARA Patani, an umbrella group representing rebel groups, to end a decades-old separatist conflict that has claimed nearly 7,000 lives since it reignited in 2004.

Wednesday’s attacks were aimed mostly at security positions such as police stations and village defense volunteer bases, Lt. Gen. Wiwat Nakwanich, commander of the 4th Army regional command, told the TNN television news channel.

“We were tipped-off by local residents that insurgents would launch attacks … people dislike violence so they alerted us,” Wiwat said.

Copyright ©2017, BenarNews. Used with the permission of BenarNews. </s> Suspected southern militants launched grenade and gun attacks on 13 targets in three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat and Songkhla Wednesday night.

Officials said that these were the first coordinated attacks after the end of the Songkran festival. The attacks occurred at about 7 pm. </s> BANGKOK
• A string of bomb and gun attacks killed two people in southern Thailand late yesterday and wounded three others, barely two weeks after a wave of coordinated attacks rocked the restive region.

The latest attacks, mostly with grenades, happened at around 7pm in the provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Songkhla, said the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), the Bangkok Post reported.

Thailand is mostly Buddhist but parts of the south are majority Muslim. Last night's attacks targeted security forces, including police and troops, and civilians too, a spokesman for the military said.

"This is the work of people who want to cause chaos. It looks like their intention wasn't to kill but to cause disorder," an ISOC spokesman, Colonel Yutthanam Petchmuang, told Reuters.

No group has yet claimed responsibility.

The multiple attacks come in the wake of a new military- backed Constitution which was signed into law on April 7, after it was overwhelmingly rejected by the three border provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat during the ratification process last August.

Twenty-three cases of attacks, including arson and five small bomb blasts, were reported just one day after King Maha Vajiralongkorn endorsed the Charter. The incidents caused widespread blackouts in four southern provinces but no casualties were reported.

Under the new Constitution, the power of lawmakers will be curbed but the army's role in government will be boosted, even after the junta led by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha steps down after expected polls late next year.

Thailand's southern provinces have been rocked by violence for more than a decade as Malay Muslim rebels battle government troops for more autonomy from the Buddhist-majority state. </s> BANGKOK (AP) — Police say a bomb has exploded outside a school in southern Thailand, killing a man and his 4-year-old daughter. Eight people were also injured.

Police Lieutenant Col. Noppadon Kingthong said the bombing happened early Tuesday in Tak Bai town of Narathiwat province.

He said Mayeng Waba and his daughter, Mitra Waba, died of their injuries while being taken to a hospital. Mayeng was dropping his daughter off at the kindergarten in the Baan Ta Baa School when they were caught in the explosion.

Among the injured, three were police personnel and one was from the military, Noppadon said.

Southern Thailand is in the grip of a separatist insurgency led by Muslim militants, who complain of discrimination by the country’s Buddhist majority. They often attack government targets. </s> One of the attacks targeted a police station in Narathiwat province, resulting in two policemen becoming injured from a grenade explosion.

The local police believe that the attacks were committed by members of Muslim separatist movements operating in those provinces.

Thailand's southern-most Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani provinces are majority-Malay and predominantly Muslim, while the rest of the state’s provinces are mostly populated by Buddhists.

The southern region has seen low-level insurgency since the 1940s, but the violence escalated in the early 2000s, claiming 6,500 lives over the course of more than ten years. The provinces have been in a state of emergency since 2004 due to activities of the separatists, who want to restore the formerly semi-independent Sultanate of Pattani. </s> HAT YAI, Thailand (AP) — Suspected Muslim insurgents have set off dozens of bombs in southern Thailand, bringing down power lines and setting tires on fire to block roads. Security officials said there were no reports of deaths or injuries.

Most of the attacks occurred early Friday in Muslim-majority provinces in Buddhist-dominated Thailand’s deep south, where about 7,000 people have been killed in a separatist insurgency that flared in 2004. Thai media speculated the actions were in response to Thursday’s ratification of Thailand’s new constitution.

Military spokesman Pramote Prom-in said 52 electric poles were damaged by explosives in the provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, and Songkhla, causing minor blackouts. He said officials also discovered burnt tires and more explosives but reported no injuries or deaths. </s> BANGKOK (Reuters) - A motorcycle bomb killed a father and daughter in front of a Thai elementary school as parents were dropping off their children on Tuesday, officials said, the latest in a series of attacks in the troubled south.

The bomb went off in Narathiwat province, one of three Muslim-majority provinces in predominantly Buddhist Thailand where a separatist insurgency has been raging since 2004.

The blast killed a man and his five year-old daughter, the army’s Internal Security Operations Command said. The motorcycle was parked opposite the school entrance. Eight people were wounded.

“We suspect this to be the work of people who want to destabilize the situation and cause chaos,” the deputy spokesman of the ISOC, Yuthanam Petchmuang, told Reuters.

The attack occurred less than a month after a wave of bombings in tourist towns, including Hua Hin, Phuket and Surat Thani, killed four people and injured dozens.

Police say the tourist-town bombings were linked to the southern insurgency and arrested a suspect over the weekend in connection with the attacks.

Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan told reporters on Tuesday that the military government, which took power in May 2014, were making security preparations ahead of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha on September 12.

More than 6,500 people have been killed in insurgency-related violence in the Muslim-majority provinces Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani Province since the conflict began, according to Deep South Watch, which monitors the conflict.

While the conflict has been largely confined to the three southern provinces, analysts say that the spread of violence to other provinces could affect Thailand’s tourism industry.
Joint bomb and gun attacks kill at least two in Narathiwat, Pattani, and Songkhla Provinces of Thailand, the latest in a long string of such attacks.