8 injured in Yala bombing

Authorities immediately cut off traffic routes leading to and from the fresh market for fear that a second bomb was go off. Such tactics have become common in the three southernmost provinces where insurgency violence have so far claimed the lives of more than 3,400 people.

Pol Colonel Poompetch Pipatpetpoom, deputy commander of Yala Provincial Police, said the bombing was in response to the authorities' crackdown on insurgent cells.

Police found at the crime scene pieces of a metal box with traces of explosive materials, along with pieces of mobile phone. This led them to believe that the bomb was set off remotely by a culprit with line of vision to the bomb.

The bomb was set off just as three security officers were within the immediate area of where the bomb was placed. The three soldiers, all of whom member of Yala 11th Task Force, were sent to the provincial hospital.   They were part of a 12-man unit that had just completed their routine patrol in the backroads of the province.

The bomb attack came one day after Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat completed his visit to the region. A spree of violence greeted the prime minister and the Army chief General Anupong Paochinda.

Somchai told reporters that security situation has been improving and downplayed the need for structural reform for the Malay-speaking South.