Security personnel inspect the scene of the explosion in Pattani yesterday.

Two women and a soldier were killed and 16 others injured when a powerful blast ripped through a teashop and tore a military vehicle to pieces here yesterday.

One of the dead women was four months pregnant.

The bomb was carried on a motorbike and parked next to a Unimog military transport vehicle just five metres from a teashop frequented by soldiers and police.

The explosion spread deadly shrapnel across a 50-metre radius.

Police are looking for a woman in her forties suspected of parking the motorbike near the teashop. Preliminary reports said the bike was laden with about a kilogram of TNT.

An officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said an eyewitness had seen the woman riding the motorcycle and parking it next to the military vehicle just 10 minutes before it exploded.

It is believed the bomb was set off with a remote control.

The bomb was stuffed in a PVC pipe, sealed with plastic and placed in a paint can in the motorcycle's basket.

Benjawan Pomanee, 33, who was eight months pregnant, and school teacher, Nanthanit Sithahiran, 35, were killed, while Private Suthirat Chuthichote, 22, from the Pattani-based Fourth Army Area's Forward Command died in hospital later.

Of the 16 injured, three were soldiers from the same unit as Private Suthirat and five were local civil servants, including a retired police officer.

The scene at the front of a residential office building next to the teashop was one of near-total destruction.

Shrapnel riddled the entire shop front with holes. Pickups parked along the two-lane street dotted with shop-houses were left pockmarked by the blast.

Pools of blood lay where those maimed had previously stood.

Across the street, Niya Yakoh, 58, badly shaken by the incident, said she was terrified for the life of her four-year-old daughter who was playing in the street when the bomb went off.

"We ran towards each other, I was so terrified, I just snatched her into my arms and then looked for a place to take cover," Niya said.

Her shop-house was left relatively unscathed, because her pickup, parked out in the front, bore the brunt of the blast.

The incident came one day after four people were killed and seven injured, including two soldiers, in this Malay-speaking southernmost province that has suffered more than two years of insurgent violence.

Yesterday's bombing was carried out despite tight security at various intersections in Pattani's Muang district, where local residents have been celebrating the week-long annual Red Cross fair.

Separately, more than 100 soldiers and police conducted a sweep in Badabareh village in Narathiwat's Muang district and discovered bomb-making materials buried at five different locations. The authorities confiscated fuses and about half a kilogram of dynamite.

Don Pathan

The Nation

Pattani