Thailand: 13 killed, more 300 wounded in coordinated Muslim bomb attacks

Thai fire fighters and soldiers walk at the site of the car bomb attack in Yala province, southern Thailand Saturday, March 31, 2012. Suspected Muslim insurgents set off coordinated bomb blasts as shoppers gathered for lunch Saturday in a busy hub of Thailand's restive south [...] (AP Photo)

HAT YAI, Thailand (Reuters) - One after another, the bombs went off, destroying shops and vehicles, engulfing buildings in flame and smoke and sending panicked shoppers and tourists fleeing.

By Monday, two days after the most coordinated bomb attacks in southern Thailand in years, the damage was clear: 13 people were killed, more than 300 wounded and the Thai government's policy to contain an eight-year rebellion by shadowy ethnic Malay Muslim rebels was again in tatters.

The bombs were hidden in pickup trucks in two cities 140 km (87 miles) apart, exploding within an hour of each other. Two went off in Yala, one of three Muslim-majority southern provinces at the heart of the insurgency that has claimed 5,000 lives since 2004.

Those explosions killed 10 people in a busy shopping street.

A third went off in the basement car park of the five-star Lee Gardens Plaza Hotel and shopping centre in Hat Yai, a bustling commercial centre that rarely sees such violence, just a few hour's drive from some of Thailand's best-known beach resorts. Rescue workers recovered three bodies from the hotel.

"What's unprecedented was the scale of the operation ... and the ruthlessness in targeting large numbers of civilians," said Anthony Davis, an analyst at IHS-Jane's, a global security consulting firm.

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