One soldier has been killed and 11 people wounded after a group of Buddhist monks was attacked by bombers in southern Thailand.<\/p>\n
Several monks were among those injured when a remote-controlled device in a rubbish bin was detonated by mobile phone as five Buddhists collected alms in a street in the city of Narathiwat, police said.<\/p>\n
The attack is believed to have been carried out by Muslim separatists who have been fighting Thailand’s mainly Buddhist government since early 2004.<\/p>\n
The soldiers were accompanying the monks to protect them from attack.<\/p>\n
One soldier died on his way to hospital, while other soldiers, monks and four passers-by were wounded, police said.<\/p>\n
Muslim insurgency<\/p>\n
The insurgency in the three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat – an Islamic sultanate until Bangkok annexed the region a century ago – has shown no sign of abating since a coup led by a Muslim general overthrew Thaksin Shinawatra, the elected prime minister, on September 19.<\/p>\n
Muslim separatists carried out a series of attacks last week.<\/p>\n
In Narathiwat province, separatists set off a bomb under a table at a crowded teashop, killing four people, on Friday.<\/p>\n
A week earlier, a migrant worker from Myanmar was beheaded in front of his teenage daughter.<\/p>\n
The militants tossed his head on the side of a village street in Narathiwat and then set off a remote-control bomb when police tried to retrieve it.<\/p>\n
Since the coup, Surayud Chulanont, the former army chief appointed prime minister by the military, has said he wants a peaceful solution to the violence.<\/p>\n
He has offered to hold talks with leaders of the Muslim insurgency, a reversal of policy from the days of Thaksin.<\/p>\n
However the military also extended the emergency rule ordered by Thaksin, which gives sweeping powers to the authorities.<\/p>\n
Aceh peace-deal eyed<\/p>\n
During an official visit to Jakarta on Saturday, Surayud hailed Indonesia’s Aceh peace accord signed in Helsinki last year which ended a separatist insurgency which had killed 15,000 people since 1979.<\/p>\n
“Indonesia has set a model in solving the conflict in the Aceh province successfully,” a Thai government web site, thaigov.go.th, quoted Surayud as saying after meeting Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Indonesian president.<\/p>\n
“The Aceh model is a good example to bring peace to southern Thailand,” Surayud said.<\/p>\n
Surayud also went to Kuala Lumpur this week for talks with Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who promised full co-operation with Thailand.<\/p>\n
Under Thaksin-era relations between Thailand and Malaysia became strained after Bangkok accused mainly-Muslim Malaysia of sheltering Islamic insurgents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One soldier has been killed and 11 people wounded after a group of Buddhist monks was attacked by bombers in southern Thailand. Several monks were among those injured when a remote-controlled device in a rubbish bin was detonated by mobile phone as five Buddhists collected alms in a street in the city of Narathiwat, police […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","spay_email":""},"categories":[11,38],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}