Muslim insurgents carried out more than ten simultaneous bomb attacks in the southern border provinces of Pattani and Yala Sunday evening, injuring three civilians. Two other attacks happened at the same time on ATMs in Songkhla province.
Pattani police chief Pol Maj Gen Piyawat Chalermsri said seven attacks were carried out in four districts in Pattani, all at about 7pm.
Two women were injured in the blast at an ATM machine in front of the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) in Muang district.
They were named as Sompit Sakonwichit, a chief physical therapist at Pattani Hospital, and Somjit Srisombat, a traditional medicine practitioner at the same hospital. They were slightly injured.
A man, Somkid Sakulwijit was also injured when a bomb shrapnel hit his left eye after a blast at an ATM in front of Kasikorn Bank on Yarang Prong road in Muang district.
Two other explosions in Muang district were also launched on ATMs. No one was injured at the Islamic Bank on Yarang road in Muang district or at the Government Savings Bank in front of Pattani Technical College.
There were no injuries in three other bomb attacks.
In Nong Chik district, an ATM at the BAAC bank was damaged, the second took place near a police station in Tambon Khao Toom, Yarang district and the third happened in front of Satsana Sueksa School in Sai Buri district.
The Pattani police chief said security cameras around the districts detected several insurgents riding motorcycles to plant the homemade bombs, the insurgents apparently trying to cause damage to the local economy.
Meanwhile in Yala, homemade bombs damaged ATMs in front of five banks in Bannang Sata district at about 7.20pm.
Another explosion damaged an ATM at Krung Thai Bank in Yala’s Kabang distirct at nearly at the same time but no injuries were reported.
Police said insurgents also fired an M79 grenade at an Army post in Yala’s Than To district. No troops were injured.
In Yala’s Yaha district, bomb disposal officers defused a bomb left in front of a convenient store opposite the district hospital.
Meanwhile, two ATMs in Songkhla province’s Thepha and Sabayoi districts were damaged in bomb blasts that happened at about the same time as those in Pattani and Yala.
One was at a PTT petrol station on the Hat Yai-Pattani road in Ban Sawan village, Tambon Sakom, in Thepha, while in Sabayoi, the other ATM to be damaged was at the Government Savings Bank in Ban Huay Bon village, Tambon Ban Node.
No one was injured in the two Songkhla explosions.
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