Pattani rocked by bomb explosions

Four bombs rocked Pattani city within six hours, leaving one civilian injured and four business outlets engulfed in flames.

Pattani police chief Mej Gen Ek-Kapop Prasitit-Wattanachai said today the first bomb exploded at an entertainment outlet in Lorong Esso, Pattani, at 7pm, injuring a 38-year-old man and destroying partly the outlet.

Police managed to defuse another 50kg homemade bomb hidden in the entertainment outlet.

About five hours later, a supermarket in the city centre was gutted after being bombed.

Thirty minutes later, an agricultural hardware shop located 200 metres from the supermarket, caught fire as the result of a bomb explosion.

Ek-Kapop said several minutes later, the fourth bomb hit a gas cooker shop located 400 metres from the entertainment outlet.

"All the bombs were activated by timing devices," he said.

He believed the bombing incidents were acts of retaliation by insurgents following the death of 16 insurgents while ambushing a navy camp in Narathiwat of Feb 13.

More than 5,000 people have died since suspected separatists resumed their armed campaign to seek independence for the three southern provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala nine years ago.