In a statement dated Wednesday, Pulo foreign-affairs chief Kasturi Mahkota questioned Thaksin's finger-pointing. He labelled it uncivilised.

"Mr Thaksin, who is now out of power, has no sense of guilt and from afar is baselessly blaming us, as he always did at the cost of others," he said.

On Monday the junta said those responsible were groups that had lost power - a reference to Thaksin and his supporters.

Eight bombs killed three people and injured more than 40 others on New Year's Eve.

Meanwhile, Thaksin issued a statement denying the junta's allegation and shifted the blame to separatists in the South.

Kasturi responded, saying, "Be they the atheist Thaksin or any individual or party who naively judged the explosions to be the work of Pattani freedom fighters we invite you all to stop making myth after myth and face reality instead."

Pulo has fought for an independent Pattani since the 1960s. It considers the five predominantly ethnic Malay Muslim provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, Songkhla and Satun a separate Pattani state.