BANGKOK, Thailand – A bomb exploded at a busy teashop in southern Thailand on Monday, wounding 13 people, police said.
The bomb, hidden under a tree by the teashop near a government school in Yala province's Bannang Sata district, seriously wounded four people, said police Lt. Yothin Wanthawee, who blamed suspected Muslim insurgents for the attack.
In Narathiwat province, two soldiers who were protecting teachers as they went to school in Tak Bai district were wounded by a bomb, police Lt. Jed Jaraenyaen said.
Since a Muslim separatist rebellion flared in Thailand's three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat in early 2004, near-daily bombings, drive-by shootings and other attacks have killed more than 2,300 people.
Military-installed Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont acknowledged Monday that the situation in the south has deteriorated, citing a political crisis in Bangkok as one of the reasons for the intensifying violence in the region.
Daily anti-government protests in the capital, growing gradually in size and enthusiasm, have increased the risk of confrontation between the protesters and the military leaders who ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in September for alleged corruption and abuse of power.
“It is a good opportunity for (the insurgents) during a political crisis to spread the violence and instability, especially to gain attention abroad,” Surayud told a news conference.
Surayud also suggested for the first time that schools in remote and volatile areas where insurgents have been particularly active should be shut following recent attacks on teachers. Students and teachers will be transferred to other schools that government security officials can monitor more closely, Surayud said.
The decision came after more than 50 schools were temporarily closed when two Buddhist teachers were killed June 11 in a daytime raid on a school in Sisakorn district of Narathiwat province. More than 200 students were there at the time. Another Buddhist teacher was killed in a drive-by shooting the same day.
More than 70 Buddhist teachers working in government schools have been killed in the three southern provinces since January 2004, when the long-simmering separatist movement flared.
The region is the only one with a Muslim majority in Buddhist-dominated Thailand. Southern Muslims have long complained of being treated as second-class citizens.
The government says it is seeking talks with the rebels to try to end the insurgency, reversing Thaksin's hard-line military style. But the rebels have responded by intensifying their violence.
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