THAILAND MARKET BOMB: Three dead and 22 injured as busy market struck by terror

The deadly attack was the first of its kind in the Yala province, home to a long-running insurgency by ethnic Malay Muslims fighting for autonomy in which more than 6,000 people have been killed since 2004.

A spokesman for the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), Pramote Prom-in said: “The criminals put a bomb in a motorcycle and placed it next to a market cart. The force of the explosion caused three people to lose their lives.” 

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place at a morning market.

Police said the motorcycle was placed near a stall selling pork, which is strictly forbidden for Muslims under Islamic Law.

It was not immediately clear whether the bomb was placed at the pork stall in a deliberate attempt to target Thai Buddhists.

A police source said:”The suspects parked the motorcycle in front of a stall selling pork in downtown Yala … it detonated 10 minutes later killing three civilians and wounding 19 others. 

“It’s the first big attack in downtown Yala in two years and is quite serious because people died.”

The stall’s female owner and a male customer were among the three people killed, police said.

The bomb blew off chunks of the market’s corrugated tin roof and wrecked nearby stalls.

The southern provinces have seen hundreds of attacks since 2004, many of them deadly, but this is the first such attack in recent months. 

Analysts who monitor the conflict say violence from the insurgency fell to an historic low in 2017 despite the fact that talks aimed at bringing peace gained little traction.

Thailand’s military government has tried to revive talks with rebel groups initiated by the previous civilian government to no avail. 

Resistance to Buddhist rule from Bangkok has existed for decades in the predominantly Muslim southern provinces, waning briefly in the 1990s before resurfacing violently in 2004.