Bomb blasts kill one, wound 30 in southern Thailand: police
One Thai person was killed and 30 wounded when two bombs exploded late on August 23 near a hotel in the southern Thai coastal town of Pattani, police said, less than two weeks after a series of unexplained blasts hit the south.
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The first blast in a parking lot behind the Southern Hotel caused no casualties, Police Lieutenant Colonel Winyu Tiamraj told Reuters on August 24. All the casualties were Thais.
"The second explosion came from a truck parked at the hotel entrance, opposite a karaoke bar and a massage parlor, resulting in one death and 30 injuries," he said.
The blasts came less than two weeks after a series of explosions hit three of Thailand's most popular tourist resorts and a town in the south of the country, killing four people and wounding dozens.
Tourism is one of the only growth sectors in Thailand, and accounts for 10% of an economy that has struggled under the stewardship of a military government that seized power two years ago.
No group has claimed responsibility for the wave of bombings, but some security experts noted at the time that southern insurgent groups have a track record of carrying out coordinated bombing attacks.
Since 2004, a low-intensity but brutal war between government troops and insurgents has killed more than 6,500 people in the southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat that border Malaysia.
