One person was killed and more than 30 others were wounded after a car bomb exploded outside a hotel in Thailand’s insurgency-hit southern region on Tuesday night. Police said condition of some of the injured is critical.
The bomb struck shortly before midnight outside a hotel on the outskirts of Pattani, one of three Muslim-majority southern provinces that have been battered by insurgency for the past 12 years.
Though the area is not popular with tourists, Thailand has been on edge since a series of explosions struck resort towns in the northern part of the country earlier this month.
‘So far there is one killed and more than 30 injured,’ Major General Thanongsak Wangsupa, commander of Pattani provincial police was quoted as saying by news agencies.
‘The hotel building was considerably damaged,’ he added.
Most countries advise their citizens visiting Thiland against traveling to Pattini because of the long-running conflict between the Buddhist-majority state and Muslim rebels seeking greater autonomy.
Shootings and bombings on almost a daily basis since 2004 have left more than 6,500 dead in the region, most of them civilians.
A staff member at the town’s hospital said 32 people were injured, five of them critically. All are Thai nationals, the worker added, requesting anonymity.
The rebels are reportedly trying to target Western nationals to spark international outrage as the kingdom’s junta leadership has been keen to downplay suggestions that the insurgency may have spread.
The rebels never claim their attacks but factions are known to be frustrated with their lack of progress after more than a decade of fighting, suggest media reports.