To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (4678 ) 2/18/2007 3:33:07 PM From: Proud_Infidel Respond to of 20106 At least 4 dead, 49 injured as bombs rip through Thailand zeenews.com Yala, Thailand, Feb 18: At least four people were killed and 49 injured late Sunday when a series of coordinated explosions, arson attacks and shootings hit Thailand's restive Muslim-majority south, police said. Fifteen explosions injured 26 people and killed one in Yala province, one of three insurgency-torn southern provinces bordering Malaysia, while in nearby Narathiwat province, one person was killed and 23 injured in seven bombings. An unknown number of arson attacks and blasts hit Pattani province, one of which temporarily cut the provincial capital's electricity. Two villagers in Pattani were also shot dead in an ambush tonight. More than 1,900 people have been killed in Thailand's muslim-majority south since the latest separatist insurgency erupted in January 2004. Today's attacks hit as Thailand was celebrating the Lunar new year. "There are efforts to create chaos and make the news worldwide," said National Army spokesman Colonel Acar Tiproch. "They use the festival time to show that there is not peace in the three provinces in the south," he told national television, adding that the army now had control of the situation. In Yala town, police said nine blasts hit karaoke bars, petrol stations, hotels, a golf course and a cinema, while in a remote area of the province one person was killed in one of six blasts. Pattani's governor Panu Uthairat told Thai Television that three blasts there had hit the power plant. A blackout ensued in Pattani town, but he reassured residents that 95 per cent of the supply had been restored. Bureau Report