Police warn of more bombings

Meanwhile, authorities in Pattani said they were following up on leads based on sketches of suspected militants gained via closed-circuit video footage.

Seven people, three of them police officers, were wounded Wednesday when bombs exploded outside the headquarters of the Pattani provincial police.

There was a similar attack around the same time at the police headquarters in Yala but no injuries were reported.

The blast in Yala damaged the gate to the station. It appeared to have been linked to a smaller blast that went off almost simultaneously in a local transport office, police said. No one was injured in the Yala blasts.

The explosions came one day after Thailand extended emergency rule over the region, where 3,300 people have died in four years of unrest.

Emergency rule gives security forces sweeping powers of search and seizure and broad immunity from prosecution, but human rights groups say it creates a climate of impunity that worsens the conflict.

In Yala, Pol Colonel Poompetch Pipatpetchpoom, deputy commander of Yala provincial police, said the bomb at the station was about one kilogram in weight and had been detonated remotely, possibly by mobile phone.

Poompetch said intelligence sources suggested insurgents plan to stage three more bomb attacks at government offices.

He said there was a reason to believe Wednesay evening's attacks may have been the work of Ismail Rayalong, a key suspect wanted for coordinated attacks on April 28, 2004, against 10 police outposts and one station, which ended in the death of at least 106 militants.

It was not clear as to how Poompetch got this information or how police distinguished the latest spate of bomb attacks from a backdrop of daily killings and attacks against government forces by insurgents.