Thailand yesterday announced plans to beef up security in its troubled deep South in the wake of a new spate of bombings that claimed three lives and left more than 60 injured including two Americans and Malaysian tourists.
The tougher measures come less than a week after Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra vowed to reduce forces in the violence-ridden area and take a more conciliatory approach to suppressing the Muslim separatist movement that has been plaguing the region for decades.
On Sunday night three bombs were set off almost simultaneously in the southern town of Hat Yai at the airport, a Carrefour hypermarket and a hotel, killing three people and injuring more than 60 others.
"These people have done this act despite the goodwill the government has shown them," said Thaksin in Bangkok.
Another bomb went off mid-day yesterday in Yala, 760km south of Bangkok, at a technical college that seriously injured six security personnel but caused no deaths.
Thailand's top security chiefs held an emergency meeting in Bangkok yesterday morning that resolved to beef up security in Hat Yai and the country's three southernmost provinces -- Naratiwat, Pattani and Yala -- where more than 750 people have died over the past 15 months.
The blast at Hat Yai Airport's departure lounge killed two people at the scene and a third died from her severe injuries yesterday morning, sources at the Songkhla Nakkarin Hospital said. Among the injured in the airport blast were Susan Ladner Henon, 51, a US teacher at a Bangkok international school, and her son, Yann Henon, with hospital sources saying both were in ICU.
Two Malaysians were also confirmed to have been among those injured in the blast at the Hat Yai airport, according to news reports in neighboring Malaysia. The Malaysian Consulate in Songkhla said the two middle-aged victims in Sunday's incident were identified as Lim Teng Sin and Ang Sin Chuan, the national news agency Bernama reported. The consulate said the two suffered minor injuries, but it did not have further details on them.
Thailand's three southernmost provinces have witnessed a spate of increasing violence since January last year, when Muslim militants raided an army depot and seized more than 300 rifles. More than 600 people died in government crackdowns and revenge killings last year and another 150 have died in the first months of this year.
Prime Minister Thaksin, who was criticized by many for fomenting the violence with his heavy-handed tactics last year, last week announced a shift in policy towards more conciliatory methods to cope with the century-old separatist movement in three provinces along the border with Malaysia.
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