BANGKOK (Reuters) - A string of gun and grenade attacks in southern Thailand that killed two people reflects tension over talks aimed at ending violence there, a conflict monitoring group said on Thursday, warning against similar attacks in future.

Military personnel and local residents stand next to a site of an attack at Yaring district, in the troubled southern province of Pattani, Thailand, April 7, 2017. REUTERS/Surapan Boonthanom

Thailand’s far south has battled a separatist insurgency since 2004, when resistance to Buddhist rule in the Muslim-majority region flared. More than 6,500 people, most of them civilians, have died in separatist violence since.

Eight people were wounded in 13 incidents on Wednesday across the provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Songkhla, near Thailand’s border with Malaysia. No group has yet claimed responsibility.

The attacks follow the Thai government’s rejection of a conditional offer for peace talks made this month by one of the main insurgent groups, the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN).

The violence was the BRN’s way of showing it is capable of coordinated strikes as a way to push for peace talks, said Srisompob Jitpiromsri, head of independent monitoring group Deep South Watch.

“This reflects attempts to create conditions for peace talks in the future,” Srisompob, whose group tracks violent incidents in the region, told Reuters.

“The group is expected to carry out similar attacks periodically, which will likely affect peace dialogues in the long run.”

A Thai security official blamed the attacks, which targeted security forces and civilians on “people who want to cause chaos”, but did not single out the BRN.

“It looks like their intention wasn’t to kill, but rather to cause disorder,” Colonel Yutthanam Petchmuang, a spokesman for the Internal Security Operations Command, told Reuters.

The violence followed coordinated attacks in the region on April 7, just hours after King Maha Vajiralongkorn signed into law a new constitution, as a step toward ending military rule.

The new constitution, which critics say will entrench military rule in Thailand, was widely opposed in the south.

“The BRN is showing that it is the right negotiating partner, which can control and command the fighters on the ground,” Rungrawee Chalermsripinyorat, an independent researcher who monitors the conflict, told Reuters.

Talks between the government and a handful of shadowy insurgent groups began in 2013, under the democratically-elected government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, overthrown in 2014 by the military in the name of ending political turmoil.

In February, the government said it had reached a breakthrough pact with MARA Patani, an umbrella group that says it speaks for insurgent groups in the south. Analysts say only a handful of BRN members belong to the group, however.

The provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala formed part of an independent Malay Muslim sultanate before being annexed by Thailand in 1909.</s>A string of bomb and gun attacks have killed two people in southern Thailand and wounded three others, a senior military spokesman says. The attacks took place in 11 districts in Narathiwat, Pattani and Songkhla provinces near the border with Malaysia late on Wednesday.

Start the conversation, or Read more at The Mercury.</s>BANGKOK
• A string of bomb and gun attacks killed two people in southern Thailand late yesterday and wounded three others, barely two weeks after a wave of coordinated attacks rocked the restive region.

The latest attacks, mostly with grenades, happened at around 7pm in the provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Songkhla, said the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), the Bangkok Post reported.

Thailand is mostly Buddhist but parts of the south are majority Muslim. Last night's attacks targeted security forces, including police and troops, and civilians too, a spokesman for the military said.

"This is the work of people who want to cause chaos. It looks like their intention wasn't to kill but to cause disorder," an ISOC spokesman, Colonel Yutthanam Petchmuang, told Reuters.

No group has yet claimed responsibility.

The multiple attacks come in the wake of a new military- backed Constitution which was signed into law on April 7, after it was overwhelmingly rejected by the three border provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat during the ratification process last August.

Twenty-three cases of attacks, including arson and five small bomb blasts, were reported just one day after King Maha Vajiralongkorn endorsed the Charter. The incidents caused widespread blackouts in four southern provinces but no casualties were reported.

Under the new Constitution, the power of lawmakers will be curbed but the army's role in government will be boosted, even after the junta led by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha steps down after expected polls late next year.

Thailand's southern provinces have been rocked by violence for more than a decade as Malay Muslim rebels battle government troops for more autonomy from the Buddhist-majority state.</s>No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attacks near the Malaysian border. – AFP picBANGKOK, April 19 — A string of bomb and gun attacks killed two people in southern Thailand late today and wounded three others, a senior military spokesman said.

The attacks took place in 11 districts in Narathiwat, Pattani and Songkhla provinces near the border with Malaysia.

The region has seen a long-running separatist insurgency: more than 6,500 people, most of them civilians, have died in separatist violence since 2004, when resistance to Buddhist rule flared up.

Thailand is mostly Buddhist but parts of the south are majority Muslim. The attacks today targeted security forces, including police and troops, and civilians, a spokesman for the military said.

“This is the work of people who want to cause chaos. It looks like their intention wasn’t to kill but rather to cause disorder,” Colonel Yutthanam Petchmuang, a spokesman for the Internal Security Operations Command, told Reuters.

As of this evening, no group had claimed responsibility.

Talks between the Thai government and a handful of shadowy insurgent groups began in 2013 under the civilian government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, but have stalled since the military overthrew her in 2014.

Earlier this month Thailand’s military junta rejected a conditional offer from the main Muslim separatist group fighting in the south to enter into formal peace talks. — Reuters</s>Two suspected insurgents have been reported dead after a series of apparently coordinated attacks rocked 15 separate locations in Thailand's southern border provinces Wednesday.

The attacks occurred between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. local time in the restive Malay Pattani region's Narathiwat, Pattani and Songkhla provinces, according to the Thailand's The Nation , which cited local police reports.

In twelve attacks reported in Narathiwat and Pattani, grenades were fired or hurled at military personnel, police stations, and villagers' homes. Suspected insurgents also opened fire on a unit of troops. A bomb reportedly killed two attackers in Songkhla province when it fell and exploded before they reached their target.

A low level separatist insurgency has persisted in Thailand's Muslim south for decades but intensified in the early 2000's, with attacks in Bangkok and Phuket blamed on southern militants. On August 11 and 12 last year, a wave of bomb and incendiary device attacks killed at least four people and injured more than 30, including about a dozen foreign nationals. Unlike Wednesday evening's attacks, those had targeted areas popular with tourists such as Phuket and the resort town of Hua Hin.</s>Suspected southern militants launched grenade and gun attacks on 13 targets in three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat and Songkhla Wednesday night.

Officials said that these were the first coordinated attacks after the end of the Songkran festival. The attacks occurred at about 7 pm.</s>Suspected insurgents mounted 13 simultaneous attacks in three of Thailand’s southernmost provinces late Wednesday, and two of them were accidentally killed in a bomb explosion, officials said.

At least 10 attacks involved bombs or grenades, while the others were shootings, according to official information.

There were 13 attacks in all – seven in Narathiwat, three in Pattani and three in Songkhla – officials in those provinces of the Thai Deep South told BenarNews.

The two suspects were killed in a blast in Saba Yoi, a district in Songkhla province. Elsewhere, a security volunteer was shot and injured as he guarded a railway station in Sungai Padi, a district of Narathiwat, officials said.

“As far as we learnt from a Saba Yoi district official, the two dead tried to plant a bomb and it went off, killing them,” an official with the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), told BenarNews on condition of anonymity.

The string of bombings and shootings were the first attacks in Thailand’s predominantly Muslim and Malay-speaking Deep South since 23 coordinated bomb blasts and arson attacks by suspected insurgents rocked the region on April 7, taking out utility poles and causing power and internet blackouts.

Since the start of the year, 30 people have been killed and 38 others injured in violence blamed on insurgents in the Deep South.

During that time, Thailand’s military government has been negotiating with MARA Patani, an umbrella group representing rebel groups, to end a decades-old separatist conflict that has claimed nearly 7,000 lives since it reignited in 2004.

Wednesday’s attacks were aimed mostly at security positions such as police stations and village defense volunteer bases, Lt. Gen. Wiwat Nakwanich, commander of the 4th Army regional command, told the TNN television news channel.

“We were tipped-off by local residents that insurgents would launch attacks … people dislike violence so they alerted us,” Wiwat said.

Copyright ©2017, BenarNews. Used with the permission of BenarNews.</s>In this photo taken late on April 20, 2017 members of a forensic unit inspect the scene of a bomb blast in Thailand's southern province of Narathiwat. Two suspected insurgents have been reported dead after a series of apparently coordinated attacks rocked 15 separate locations in Thailand's southern border provinces Wednesday.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Time.</s>One of the attacks targeted a police station in Narathiwat province, resulting in two policemen becoming injured from a grenade explosion.

The local police believe that the attacks were committed by members of Muslim separatist movements operating in those provinces.

Thailand's southern-most Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani provinces are majority-Malay and predominantly Muslim, while the rest of the state’s provinces are mostly populated by Buddhists.

The southern region has seen low-level insurgency since the 1940s, but the violence escalated in the early 2000s, claiming 6,500 lives over the course of more than ten years. The provinces have been in a state of emergency since 2004 due to activities of the separatists, who want to restore the formerly semi-independent Sultanate of Pattani.</s>A string of gun and grenade attacks in southern Thailand that killed two people reflects tension over talks aimed at ending violence there, a conflict monitoring group said on Thursday, warning against similar attacks in future. Military personnel inspect a site of an attack at the Saba Yoi district, in the troubled southern province of Songkhla, Thailand April 20, 2017.

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Joint bomb and gun attacks kill at least two in Narathiwat, Pattani, and Songkhla Provinces of Thailand, the latest in a long string of such attacks.