Bombs near school injure 4 soldiers
Three homemade bombs, hidden in a shelter near a school, blew up yesterday in Yala while troops on foot patrol passed by, wounding four of them.
In Pattani, an M79 grenade launcher was used to attack a police station in Nong Chik district, slightly wounding a child.
The triple blasts near Samakkhee School in Yala’s Yaha district did not hurt any students, who were led away to gather at another building.
The roadside community shelter is a regular resting place for armed soldiers who escort teachers and students to and from the school. The four wounded infantrymen, belonging to the sixman squad, were treated at a hospital and were in safe condition.
Her Majesty the Queen, through a close aide, later donated money and supplies to the four victims at the hospital.
About 10 kilograms of explosives were stuffed into three cooking gas tanks. Ordinance police are looking into how they were detonated.
At Nong Chik Police Station, two M79 rounds fell wide of the target but landed at a nearby officers quarters, cutting the wrist of an 8yearold girl and throwing the family into panic.
The police station came under an M79 attack two years ago that also failed to hit the target.
An intelligence source said insurgents would have not have missed a static target if they really wanted to damage the station. The two attacks could have been carried out by noninsurgents who would gain from the violence, the source added.
