Series of bomb kill one, wound 22 in Thailand

At least 31 bomb attacks hit police and Government offices in Thailand's insurgency-hit south on Thursday.

At least 31 bomb attacks hit police and Government offices in Thailand's insurgency-hit south on Thursday, killing one official and wounding 22 people, police said, blaming Islamic militants.

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The wave of blasts within about 30 minutes of each other rocked the Muslim dominated provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat near the Malaysian border, with five military and one police officer among the injured, police said.

"Militants are likely to have coordinated the attacks and planned them in advance because the bombs went off between 7:45 am and 8:15 am," said Colonel Sommai Phutthakun, deputy police commander in Narathiwat.

"They wanted to show their power," he said, referring to Muslim insurgents.

The attacks, using mostly remote-controlled explosives, followed a week of relative calm when predominantly Buddhist Thailand celebrated King Bhumibol Adulyadej's 60-year reign.

In Pattani, nine blasts killed one official at a tea shop near a Khko Pho district police post and wounded 15 more people, two seriously, police said.

In Narathiwat, 16 bomb attacks hit the Muang, Ruso, Ra Ngae and Takbai districts, wounding five marine troops.

In Yala, six attacks wounded at least two people.

A third bomb went off at a tea shop near Yaha district police station in Yala, wounding the owner of the shop, and a fourth device exploded at a police station in Bannang Sata district.

A fifth blast in Yala hit a border patrol pickup truck outside a police officer's apartment in Muang Yala district, destroying the unoccupied car.

On Tuesday two Buddhists, a female local Government official and a shop owner, were killed in separate shootings in Pattani, police said.

More than 1,300 people have been killed since an insurgency broke out in January 2004 in the mainly Islamic and ethnic Malay south, a region also troubled by organised crime and police corruption.