City without electricity after blasts

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.

No one immediately took responsibility for any of the attacks. However, police said they were probably linked to continuing violence in southern Thailand, which authorities blame on Islamic separatists.

Bombs had been planted in at least eight spots in Narathiwat – the capital of the province of the same name – but authorities defused some of them, said Maj Gen Yongyut Chareanwanit, Narathiwat police commander.

Three injuries were reported from the blasts, Yongyut said.

Separate attacks were reported Wednesday night in the neighbouring provinces of Pattani and Yala, where attackers fatally shot a man.

More than 1,100 people have died since a once-dormant Islamic separatist movement re-emerged in January last year in the three southern provinces, the only ones with Muslim majorities in predominantly Buddhist Thailand.

Three of the bombs in Narathiwat exploded at a electrical power plant and relay stations, knocking out power in at least parts of the city. Police said a gunbattle broke out at one of the sites, but they gave no details.

A bomb thrown or planted behind a prison injured an official, while another outside a Buddhist temple injured a boy and his father, police said.

Television station ITV said three suspects had been detained, but police did not confirm the report.

Another bomb exploded at a border checkpoint in Narathiwat province’s rural Tak Bai district, but no injuries were reported.

Several attacks were also reported in neighbouring Pattani and Yala provinces. In an assault on a security outpost in Pattani’s Saiburi district, a gunbattle broke out after attackers hurled a bomb.

In three separate incidents in Yala, police said one man was killed and one injured.

Up to 10 percent of Thailand’s 65 million people are Muslims.

Most live in the three southernmost provinces, where they have long complained of second-class treatment.

Several separatist rebellions have broken out in the area over the past century.