Blasts Hit Southern Thailand’s Pattani, Killing One

Bangkok, 22 Dzulqa’dah 1437/25 August 2016 (MINA) – One person has been killed and 30 others injured after two bombs exploded in a busy nightlife district in Thailand’s troubled southern province of Pattani.

The first bomb targeted a pub and karaoke bar late on Tuesday causing no casualties, before a second blast struck the same area 20 minutes later in an apparent ” double – tap attack”, the Bangkok Post newspaper said.

Al Jazeera’s Scott Heidler, reporting from Bangkok, said the second attack killed a woman and injured those who were responding to the first blast.

“Pattani is a frequent target by southern insurgents, but the use of a car bomb is less frequent than IEDs [improvised explosive devices] or gun attacks,” he said.

Travel warning

Most embassies warn nationals against all travel to Pattani – an area bordering Malaysia – that Thailand annexed over a century ago.

A series of bombings across central and southern Thailand on August 11 and 12 left four people dead and more than 30 injured.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks but some security experts have blamed southern secessionist groups.

In remarks after the blasts in Pattani, Prawit Wongsuwan,Thailand’s deputy military leader, dismissed any link between the August 11-12 bombings and the unrest in the south.

Earlier on Tuesday, two Chinese nationals went on trial for their alleged roles in a deadly bombing in a Hindu shrine in Bangkok one year ago.

Since 2004, more than 6,200 have been killed and 11,000 injured as armed groups fight for the creation of an independent state combining Thailand’s three southern Muslim-majority provinces: Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat.

The three provinces soundly rejected a referendum earlier this month on a new military-backed constitution, which passed convincingly in most of the rest of Thailand. (T/R07/R01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)