BANGKOK (Reuters) - Bomb blasts were among 23 coordinated attacks that rocked Muslim-majority southern Thailand early on Friday, a security officer said, just hours after King Maha Vajiralongkorn signed a new constitution as a step towards ending military rule. REUTERS/Surapan Boonthanom

Police reported no casualties in the region, site of a recent upsurge in a decades-old Muslim separatist insurgency that had voted the most strongly against the new constitution at a referendum last year. “They want to destroy the government’s credibility and create fear among people.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility and security forces said they could not yet identify which insurgent group was to blame. Military spokesman Pramote Prom-in said 52 electric poles were damaged by explosives in the provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, and Songkhla, causing scattered minor blackouts. The border region was one of few areas to reject the ruling junta's constitution in a referendum that saw the document approved last year. A Malay Muslim separatist insurgency in the provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat has claimed more than 6,500 lives since it escalated in 2004, according to independent monitoring group Deep South Watch.
A wave of small-scale terrorist attacks, including tire burning and the bombing of the electric grid, hits the Thai provinces of Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat, and Songkhla in response to the new Constitution of Thailand.