Casualties are mounting in Thailand's troubled southern border region as a bomb exploded in Yala province Saturday morning, injuring a soldier, while three villagers were wounded in a shooting by a suspected insurgent in Pattani Province.

Yala police were quoted by the Thai News Agency as saying that the five-kg bomb was hidden in a potted plant and exploded in front of a school building in the provincial seat, injuring a soldier who was on patrol duty.

Police investigators concluded that suspected insurgents detonated the bomb by remote control at the time the patrol unit stopped by.

The injured soldier was Pvt. Thaksin Kamnoi, 22, who suffered facial and neck wounds.

Violence also occurred late Friday after three villagers in Pattani's Yaring district were shot by an unknown gunman.

The victims were identified as Sulgifli Bilhem, 22, Haji Maelae, 22, and Makori Samae, 36. They were driving their motorcycles on their way home from a teashop. Police are investigating the incident.

Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat are the country's three southern border provinces plagued by violence related to an ongoing insurgency which has claimed nearly 2,000 lives since it resumed in early 2004.
 
(Xinhua News Agency March 10, 2007)