Bangkok (dpa) – At least one person died and five other people were injured after seven bombs exploded overnight in southern Thailand, local media reported Thursday.
The bombs went off in Pattani province and targeted restaurants, a cash machine and a market, local television channel INN reported.
Officials sent in forensics experts and army officials to investigate and to tighten security, Army General Yuthanan Petchmuang said.
A Thai soldier guards a closed fresh market in the Pattani province, southern Thailand, 05 October 2012. At least one person died and five other people were injured after seven bombs exploded overnight in southern Thailand, local media reported Thursday.
Yuthanan said the bombs were meant to destabilize security forces operating in the area and to create confusion.
The Muslim-majority provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat were part of the Sultanate of Pattani, a Thai vassal state, for several hundred years.
In 1909, the territory was divided between then-British Malaya and the Thai kingdom in a treaty that formalized the region as Thailand’s three southernmost states.
Since 2004, an insurgent movement to create an independent state has resulted in 6,200 deaths and 11,000 people injured.
