Suspected Muslim insurgents have killed nine civilians in a flurry of attacks in southern Thailand, the Thai army said today, the fifth anniversary of a bloody assault by security forces against militants at a mosque.

A CAR bomb blast at a fruit market and another explosion minutes later at a nearby teashop wounded 73 people in Muslim southern Thailand yesterday, where in a five-year rebellion 3,200 people have died, police said.

THE Thai government is seeking closer links with Muslim countries, part of a two-pronged strategy to end separatist violence in three of its southern provinces.

A bomb exploded today in front of a crowded tea shop in restive southern Thailand, killing one woman and injuring 23 other people, police said.

A roadside bomb killed seven Thai soldiers today in the latest violence to hit the country’s restive south.

Suspected Muslim insurgents launched simultaneous attacks across four provinces in southern Thailand, killing six and wounding at least 50, an army spokesman said.

A series of bomb explosions rocked insurgency-plagued southern Thailand, today, killing three people and wounding 53 others, amid power blackouts and telephone cuts.

Bangkok's Mayor Apirak Kosayothin ordered the cancellation of the two major public New Year's Eve countdown celebrations and other smaller ones following six or more bomb blasts in the city today.

A series of New Year's Eve bomb blasts rocked the Thai capital Bangkok today, killing at least two people and injuring 12, police said today.

More than 300 schools in Thailand will close on Monday in response to increasingly vicious attacks by suspected Muslim insurgents against teachers and schools.

An exiled Muslim rebel leader welcomed Thailand’s military overthrow of prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra today, saying the coup could help resolve a bloody Islamic uprising in the country’s south.

Bombs ripped through three department storesin Thailand’s restive south today, killing two and wounding 10 others, an army commander said.

At least 22 bombs exploded almost simultaneously today inside commercial banks in southern Thailand, killing two people and injuring 28 in a region bloodied by a Muslim insurgency.

A bomb exploded at a tea shop this morning near a busy market in violence-plagued southern Thailand, killing three people and injuring nine, police said.

Security forces in Thailand are today investigating whether Muslim insurgents targeted mobile-phone transmitters in Thailand’s turbulent south in response to government efforts to block them from using mobile phones to detonate bombs.

Thailand’s government said today that it is extending a state of emergency in three southern provinces for an additional three months to deal with a Muslim insurgency that has left more than 1,200 dead.

Bombs exploded in several parts of the southern Thai city of Narathiwat today, injuring at least three and knocking out electricity, police said, while separate violence reportedly killed one man elsewhere in the south.

The body of a beheaded police officer was found in southern Thailand today, a fellow officer said, in the latest deadly attack in 18 months of sectarian violence and the seventh beheading in the Muslim-dominated area since mid-June.

Thailand’s prime minister threatened today to lay siege to villages that allegedly supported separatists in the country’s Muslim-dominated south.

Terrorists are plotting attacks next year at tourist resorts across Thailand, according to documents found in the house of a fugitive leader of the country’s Islamic insurgency, a senior security official said.

Train services in three southern Thai provinces were temporarily halted today following simultaneous bomb explosions on railway tracks in a region stalked by an escalating Muslim insurgency, officials said.

At least 78 people have died following a riot in southern Thailand, many of them crushed and suffocated after they were arrested and packed tightly into trucks, doctors said today.

An Islamic leader accused Thai troops of overreacting in a crackdown on rioters that left six people dead, while a military commander said 1,300 people were arrested in the rioting in Thailand’s Muslim-dominated south.

Harrods tycoon Mohammed al Fayed donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to an Islamic school where 11 pupils died in a bloody confrontation between machete-wielding militants and Thai security forces, its headmaster said today.

FEARING revenge attacks, the army poured reinforcements into southern Thailand yesterday as grieving families buried their dead and rights groups and Muslim preachers condemned the killings of more than 100 suspected Islamic militants.

Fearing revenge attacks, the army poured reinforcements into southern Thailand today as grieving families buried their dead today and rights groups and Muslim preachers condemned the killings of more than 100 suspected Islamic militants.

Police gunned down scores of machete-wielding militants who stormed more than a dozen security outposts, the bloodiest day yet in Thailand’s troubled Muslim-dominated south. The death toll stood at least 112.

At least 93 people were killed when Thai police fought machete-wielding militants who launched simultaneous pre-dawn raids on security outposts today, in the heaviest fighting yet in the troubled Muslim-dominated south, officials said.

Thai police shot and killed more than 70 machete-wielding militants who launched simultaneous pre-dawn raids on security outposts today, in the heaviest fighting yet in the troubled Muslim-dominated south, officials said.

Britain and the United States have warned people to stay away from southern Thailand because of the possibility of terrorist attacks.