Bomb wounds 17 people in Thailand's Muslim south

YALA, Thailand, June 3 (Reuters) A bomb wounded 17 teenagers in Thailand's rebellious Muslim south as they played football today, officials said.

The bomb exploded at a sports field in a village in Yala, one of three southern provinces where more than 2,100 people have been killed in a three-year-old separatist insurgency.

''The men were playing football when a bomb exploded. No-one is dead,'' an official told Reuters.

Three were sufficiently seriously wounded to be sent to hospital while the others had minor injuries, officials said.

Nobody claims responsibility for the daily gun or bomb attacks in the far south, annexed by predominately Buddhist Thailand a century ago, where most people speak a Malay dialect.

REUTERS ABM RK2103