Thailand: Eight soldiers killed by a roadside bomb in Yala province
A roadside bomb killed eight soldiers in Thailand’s restive south, an army spokesman said, raising questions over the durability of a fragile peace process aiming to end the near-decade long insurgency.
More than 5,700 people have been killed in a festering insurgency in Thailand’s Muslim-majority southern provinces, but optimism for peace has flickered recently after talks between authorities and some rebel groups including the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN).
The bomb, among the most deadly single attacks by rebels on Thai security forces in recent years, ripped through a military truck transporting the soldiers after a night on duty at a base in Krongpinang district of Yala province.
“It was a very powerful bomb that completely destroyed the truck,” spokesman Colonel Pramote Promin told AFP by phone.