Bomb wounds six in Thai Muslim south

BANGKOK, June 18 (Reuters) A bomb detonated by a mobile telephone wounded six police and government officials in Thailand's rebellious Muslim south today, police said.

The 5-kg bomb hidden in a metal box exploded at an intersection in the southern province of Narathiwat where the six had stopped in their patrol car, a provincial police official told Reuters.

''The bomb was detonated by mobile phone. Of the six, one was seriously injured,'' said the official, who declined to be named.

Gun and bomb attacks have become a part of daily life in three Muslim-majority provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, where more than 1,300 people have been killed in a two-year-old separatist insurgency.

A series of bomb attacks in the region last week were launched by militants to coincide with a meeting of Islamic leaders in Central Asia next week, a top Thai security official said yesterday.

Militants in Thailand's southernmost region, annexed by largely Buddhist Bangkok a century ago, were trying by all means to have their struggle for a Muslim sultanate recognised by the Muslim community, said National Intelligence Agency chief Jumpol Manmai.

At least 60 small bomb attacks took place on Thursday and Friday in the three southern provinces, killing at least two and wounding more than 30 people.

Security officials said they expected more explosions as more than 200 small bombs like those used in the past week had been smuggled from Malaysia into the region of 1.8 million people, most of them ethnic Malays who feel more connected to Malaysia than Thailand.

The Malyasian government has denied militants are using its soil to plot attacks in Thailand.

REUTERS CH VC1212