November 11, 2008	Tuesday	Ziqa'ad 12, 1429

NARATHIWAT (Thailand), Nov 10: One soldier was killed and seven injured on Monday in two bombings in southern Thailand, the latest in a string of blasts in the insurgency-hit region, local police said.

The first roadside bomb hit a pick-up truck carrying eight solders in troubled Narathiwat province, causing minor damage to the vehicle, police said. As the soldiers got out and tried to pursue militants hiding nearby, a second bomb exploded killing one of the troops. The other seven men were wounded.

More than 3,400 people have been killed in attacks by shadowy insurgent groups operating in Thailand’s Muslim-majority far south since January 2004, and successive governments have struggled to quell the unrest.

The three southern provinces were an ethnic Malay sultanate until largely Buddhist Thailand annexed the region in 1902, provoking decades of tensions.—AFP