A bomb attack in Yala on Friday killed three soldiers on teacher protection patrol duty, hours after a roadside bomb attack killed five people in Narathiwat on Thusday night.
Police in Yala's Yaha district were alerted at about 1.45pm about a bomb attack at an army unit on patrol in Bayoh village.
The attack killed three soldiers at the scene. The slain soldiers included Sgt Weerachart Bunkua and Private Kammaruding Tuwee. Initial investigation showed they and other soldiers were on pick-up and were on patrolling in the village when insurgents ignited an explosives.
On Thursday night, local police said armed insurgents of the RKK militant group were believed to have carried out the roadside bomb attack in Narathiwat's Rueso district and fired on the five-man patrol including one soldier and two provincial rangers.
Pol Maj Gen Chaitat Intanuchitr, Narathiwat provincial police chief, said preliminary investigation by Pol Col Samart Vichaikhatka, Rueso police
superintendent, indicated that an armed group led by Abdulrahing Daeso, an alleged leader of the Runda Kumpulan Kecil (RKK), was behind the attack.
A combined force of 50 police soldiers and local personnel raided a house in Rueso Friday morning and detained two suspects identified as Masarasudi Zika and Mamaraki Zika, brothers who denied involvement in the attack.
Police confiscated 50 home-made explosive devices in the house along with other items including 100 giant fireworks and two military camouflage
uniforms.
The brothers said the items belong to a friend who fled before the raid.
Police found more than 40 spent cartridges at the crime scene, while sniffer dogs were brought in to help track the assailants believed hiding on a mountain. The spent cartridges were identified as coming from HK and 9mm weapons, while the bomb was a home-made explosive device put into a fire extinguisher wired with a detonator tied to a roadside tree.
The victims were identified as M/Sgt Kiatchai Yaemthap, patrol leader, two rangers Paskorn Sukprakarn, Karim Kaewsalam, Usman Mayi, a village defence volunteer and Abdulromae Waekaji, an assistant village chief. The assailants carried off six weapons from the patrol.