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Bombs wound 8 in Thai south before Thaksin trip
Two bombs exploded in Thailand's restive south on Monday, wounding eight people, officials said.
The blasts occurred hours before Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra meets top aides to revise security tactics in the region ahead of a visit there later this week.
Thaksin, who won a second term in a landslide last week but not one seat in the largely Muslim south, said he would improve coordination of efforts to restore peace in the region, where more than 500 people have been killed since January last year.
There has been another surge in violence in the three far south provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat since Thaksin won his second term, the first elected Thai prime minister to do so.
Militants have targeted troops and police with remote-controlled bombs, killed civil servants and set schools on fire.
On Monday, they detonated a bomb in front of a school in Narathiwat's Joh Airong district aimed at a joint security patrol that guards teachers traveling to and from school, police said.
The bomb missed the patrol, but a second bomb detonated 15 minutes later about 100 yards away wounded eight soldiers and police who came to examine the site of the first explosion.
Despite the attacks, Thaksin insisted he would fly to all three provinces on Wednesday as planned. |
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