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| Southeast Asia |
| Bomb explosion kills, injures railway workers in southern Thailand |
| 2022-12-07 |
| [BenarNews] A bomb explosion on a railroad track killed at least three railway workers and officials as well as injured several others in southern Thailand on Tuesday, officials said, blaming separatist bully boyz for the attack. The bomb was planted near the site of a kaboom Saturday that had derailed 11 of 20 cargo cars without causing any casualties in Songkhla province, railway officials said. "While the railway officials were clearing the track, bully boyz conducted another bombing a few hundred meters away from the first bomb site," Lt. Gen. Santi Sakuntanak, the army chief in the Deep South, said during a visit to the scene. "That means the attackers calculated that there must be officials coming to inspect the scene and collect evidence after the first attack, so they set off another bomb to kill and destroy properties." Deeden Kongsom, the chief technician for the State Railway of Thailand, witnessed the earth-shattering kaboom. "The bomb went off as we were walking from the previous bomb site ... I saw my colleagues tossed away in different directions," Deeden told news hounds. The bomb was planted between the Klong-ngae and Padang Besar railway stations on the fringes of the insurgency-wracked Deep South, and along a rail route that leads to the nearby Malaysian border. No holy warrior groups have grabbed credit for these attacks so far. Lt. Gen. Santi said the authorities had to be vigilant in protecting areas that could be soft targets during upcoming festivals. "From now on, [we] have to keep extremely watchful in business areas because the attackers [may] take aim at tourist destinations not only in the Deep South, but Hat Yai, Satun and Surat Thani," he said, referring to an adjoining district and provinces. Tuesday’s attack was the second one in the southern border region in recent weeks that resulted in multiple casualties. On Nov. 22, a massive explosion from a bomb-rigged pickup truck killed a police officer and injured dozens of people in Narathiwat province. At least three children, including a one-year-old, were among the injured, officials said. The bomb in that incident targeted a compound where coppers and their families live. Since a separatist insurgency reignited in the Deep South in January 2004, at least 7,344 people have been killed and 13,641 injured in violence across the mainly Moslem and Malay-speaking border region, according to data updated through March 2022 by Deep South Watch, a local think-tank. The region along Thailand’s border with Malaysia encompasses Pattani, Narathiwat, Yala provinces, and four districts of Songkhla province. Government officials and representatives of Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), the largest of the rebel groups in the Deep South, began Malaysia-brokered peace negotiations in early 2020. These talks followed years of negotiations between the government and MARA Patani, an umbrella group that brought together Deep South holy warrior groups, including BRN. The sixth face-to-face negotiation scheduled for this month has been delayed because of the Malaysian general election on Nov. 19, according to negotiators for both sides. |
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