Students of Ban Bannang Buyo in Tambon Bannang Sareng in Yala’s Muang district sit on the ground and use plastic chairs as desks in a tent classroom. Their school building was burnt down by insurgents. The school has appealed for donations of study materi

A bomb exploded at a busy teashop in Yala's Bannang Sata district yesterday, injuring 14 people, two seriously.

The bomb came as Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont suggested some of the 700-plus public schools in the restive region should be closed for security reasons.

The PM acknowledged in a press conference yesterday the situation in the South "had deteriorated". He suggested schools in remote and volatile areas where insurgents have been particularly active be closed down in the wake of recent attacks on teachers.

Students and teachers would be transferred to other schools where security officials could keep a closer eye on them, Surayud said.

He cited political tension in Bangkok as a reason for greater violence in the region. "It is a good opportunity for [the insurgents] during a political crisis to spread the violence and instability, especially to gain attention abroad."

The announcement came amid growing concerns among local teachers for their security following a series of brutal attacks, including the shooting of two in front of their students. About 260 schools in the region closed following the attack last week. About half of these reopened yesterday.

Separately, initial inquiries into the teashop blast in Bannang Sata suggested the bomb, which was set off remotely, was hidden in the teashop, frequented by district officials and locals.

The district is one of the most violence-prone areas where roadside bomb attacks and gunfights between insurgents and government forces have become daily occurrences.

While Buddhist-owned restaurants often used by security officials and civilians have come under bomb attacks over the past three years, in recent months a growing number of Muslim-owned outlets have also been targeted for bomb and grenade attacks.

Last Thursday, in Yala's Muang district, a group of men in a pickup truck tossed a grenade into a teashop in Ban Manangsareng, prompting residents to suggest that a small form of communal violence was slowly taking shape.

Army spokesman Colonel Acra Thiproch said two male suspects were believed to have taken part in the attack.

Meanwhile, a roadside bomb in nearby Narathiwat's Tak Bai district injured two soldiers, with one in a critical condition. The soldiers were surveying the route along which they escort teachers to and from a school in Tambon Bangkhunthong.

In a related development, police said they plan to charge seven suspected militants nabbed on Sunday with terrorism and being members of organised crime.

Pol Colonel Jeerasak Lormae, deputy superintendent of Yala's Muang District police station, said the police would consider other charges connected to the seizure of an AK47 and electrical wiring that could be used to make or set off explosives.

But Jeerasak admitted the investigation had not gone smoothly, as the seven were not giving out much information.

Out of the seven, at least one suspect, Abdullah Baheh, 25, is wanted in connection with the murder of a school director and a woman in Yala in December last year and April this year, investigators said.

All of seven deny involvement in insurgent attacks.

More than 2,200 people have been killed and thousands more wounded in separatist violence that erupted in the far South in January 2004.

The violence has continued despite peace-building efforts by the military-installed government, which came to power following the coup in September.

The Muslim-majority region was once an autonomous sultanate, until it was annexed by mainly Buddhist Thailand a century ago. Separatist unrest has erupted there periodically ever since.

The Nation

Yala