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Bomb blasts injure five in South, third device found

Published on December 07, 2004

A day after the airborne dispatch of 132 million origami "peace
birds" to pacify the restive South, four soldiers and an assistant
district chief were injured in two separate explosions while a
home-made bomb was defused before it could do harm in Rangae district.

A pipe bomb went off early yesterday morning just as four soldiers
returned to their checkpoint after a patrol in the area.

"The explosion caused a crater some two metres wide and wounded all
four soldiers," said Sub-Lieutenant Sornphet Tantiamornchai, adding
that one of the soldiers might have set off the bomb by stepping on a
booby trap.

The four injured soldiers are Sergeant Narongdech Katichob and three
privates, Denchai Chanyuth, Theerasak Yubua and Chatree Khumnak.
Denchai was admitted to the provincial hospital for serious injuries in
his right side, including the eye, torso and arm. The other three
soldiers suffered minor injuries.

While inspecting the scene, Sornphet was alerted that another home-made
bomb had been found about a kilometre away. He called in a
bomb-disposal squad to defuse it.

A third bomb, however, went undetected until it exploded some four
hours after the first. Assistant district chief Preecha Nualnoy was
entering a checkpoint to alert the security detail on duty about the
earlier bomb attack when he was wounded by the explosion.

Police suspect that the second explosion was detonated by remote
control with a mobile phone. Preecha, who was admitted to the district
hospital, suffered injuries to the arms and shoulders.

Elsewhere in Pattani, rubber planter Sawat Phetmanee filed a complaint
with police saying assailants had cut down his saplings over a
three-rai plot. Lt-Colonel Asis Umayi, chief of the Tambon Rayabanyang
police station, said he suspected that militants were behind the
vandalism.

The destruction of Sawat's plantation came in the wake of an arson
attack against another rubber plantation in Mae Lan district on Friday
night, during which a barracks for workers was burnt down without
resulting in casualties.

Meanwhile in Yala, the Southern Border Provinces Peace-building Command
organised a meeting with some 100 Muslim leaders in order to solicit
their views on how to curtail religious propaganda used for recruiting
militants.

Madaoh Yalapae, chairman of the province's Association of Islamic
Schools, said the government should revive a training programme for
religious teachers who were educated abroad. "The training would help
graduates from foreign Islamic schools to earn certificates enabling
them to teach in Thailand," he said, adding that the training
programme was closed down in recent years because of budget cuts.

In related news, Justice Minister Pongthep Thepkanjana said in Bangkok
that the government was planning to invoke the country's
money-laundering laws to investigate finances underpinning the ongoing
violence in the South. "I've been charged with studying relevant
laws in order to determine what additional legal measures can be
applied to fight the violence," he said.

Pongthep said money-laundering laws allowed for ways to uncover the
origins of funds that normal police procedures cannot generally
disclose.

Meanwhile, National Human Rights Commission member Khunying Amporn
Meesuk said security officials appeared to have put in extra effort to
solve the southern unrest. He said the government had agreed to
implement all recommendations put forward by the commission's report
on the Tak Bai deaths last month.

The Nation