Thai police say suspected Muslim militants kills 6 in southern bomb attack

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

PATTANI, Thailand — Police say suspected Muslim insurgents in southern Thailand killed six civilians in a bomb attack on their vehicle in the south.

Police investigator Heraman Chedi says the explosion occurred Wednesday in Narathiwat’s Ra-ngae district, and attackers raked the vehicle with machine-gunfire afterward.

inShare Heraman says the victims were Buddhist hunters headed to a nearby forest, and one survived and was taken to a local hospital.

A rescue worker who came later to the scene was also injured when he stepped on land mine.

Narathiwat, Yala, Pattani and parts of Songkla provinces are the only Muslim-dominated areas in predominantly Buddhist Thailand. Nearly 5,000 people have been killed since an Islamist insurgency erupted in 2004.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/thai-police-say-suspected-muslim-militants-kills-6-in-southern-bomb-attack/2011/11/02/gIQAHrKRfM_story.html

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

YALA, Thailand — A series of explosives planted by suspected Muslim rebels ripped through a town in Thailand's troubled south on Tuesday, killing at least one civilian and wounding dozens more.

Officials said 15 blasts were heard across Yala and caused chaos in the town, marking the seventh anniversary of a protest in the insurgency-plagued region that left 85 anti-government demonstrators dead.

At least one civilian was killed and two rebels died when their explosives were prematurely detonated on Tuesday evening, according to governor Krisada Boonrach.

An AFP photographer at a local hospital said more than 50 wounded people, some in a serious condition, had arrived for medical treatment after the blasts, which caused a power blackout across the city.

The violence was latest in a series of increasingly brazen attacks by shadowy rebels in the Muslim-majority Thai south, which has been plagued by more than eight years of conflict claiming more than 4,800 lives.

Tuesday's blasts, initially thought to be caused by a mixture of motorcycle and remote-controlled bombs, came on the anniversary one the region's deadliest incidents on October 25, 2004.

Seven people were shot dead as security forces broke up a protest in the town of Tak Bai, and 78 more suffocated or were crushed to death in trucks while being transported to a detention centre.

Rights groups have said the failure of Thai authorities to hold security forces to account over the deaths has fuelled further violence and alienation in the southern region bordering Malaysia.

The insurgents are not thought to be part of a global jihad movement but are instead rebelling against a long history of perceived discrimination against ethnic Malay Muslims by governments in the Buddhist-majority nation.

Deep South Watch, which closely monitors the conflict, said earlier this year that more than half of the victims are Muslims, many apparently targeted because they are seen as traitors for cooperating with the local authorities.

On Sunday at least seven people were killed in back-to-back shooting and bomb attacks in a town in Narathiwat province, neighbouring Yala.

Late last month, more than a dozen suspected insurgents attacked a school in Narathiwat, killing four soldiers and seriously wounding one child.

Teachers working in state schools are frequently targeted because they are seen as a symbol of government authority and an education system perceived as an effort by Bangkok to impose Buddhist culture.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j5L-5j8mB205qY8taP5_2lAzkh-w?docId=CNG.53a3a87585d070bccdefff624c9c67d1.11

[scandal 951]

Don't you know, this kind of violence is ok. It does not require international censure or condemnation or UN resolutions or Goldstone reports. It does not involve Israel, so it's not interesting. After all, who cares about Muslims killing Buddhist monks who are tending to their flock? Nothing to see, move along.

Here was an incident from last January. One of innumerable such attacks. Buddhist Monks and nuns have been beheaded. Temples have been firebombed. And the world reaction is? Nothing.

Gunmen killed a Buddhist monk and injured two others as they collected alms in Thailand's insurgency-plagued south, according to police. A Thai Buddhist monk lies on a bed at a hospital while receiving treatment following an attack in Thailand's restive southern province of Pattani, in January.