By Max Constant
BANGKOK (AA) – Thailand has suspended train travel in its majority Muslim south, after a bomb on a track tore apart a carriage and killed a railway employee.
Repairs — which State Railway governor Wutthichart Kalayanamitr has said will take about ten days — threaten travel in the insurgency-plagued region prior to the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which starts Sep. 12, and also affects those wishing to go on the Hajj pilgrimage.
Local media speculated Monday, however, that the suspension will continue until a security assessment of the railway network in the three southern provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat has been carried out.
On Saturday, a remote control bomb placed on the rail tracks near the Khokpo train station in Pattani province exploded when the Sungai Kolok – Hat Yai train was passing.
“The explosion tore apart the last carriage of the train, killed one railway employee and injured three others, including the train station chief, another railway employee and a defense volunteer,” Police Col. Pramot Juichuay, a deputy investigator at Khokpo police station, told Anadolu Agency.
Police investigators attributed the attack to a local cell of the insurgency movement, led by Seri Waemamu, who is on a list of wanted insurgent suspects.
It was the second such explosion this year, after a bomb blast damaged track July 6 before Eid al-Fitr between the Balo and Rueso stations in Narathiwat province.
The incident left Muslims hoping to travel to visit relatives in the three provinces forced to continue their way via vans or buses.
Sunday’s blast again left a large number of travelers congregating at Hat Yai bus station, prompting transportation authorities to increase the number of vehicles on Monday.
The incident came one day after a round of talks between Thailand’s military government and the Mara Patani rebel umbrella organization — hosted in Kuala Lumpur with Malaysia acting as facilitator — ended without the signing of any deals regarding the south.
Gen. Aksara Kerdphol, the lead negotiator of the government delegation, said the talks could not finalize the “Terms of Reference” for further negotiations.
This meeting came amid concerns from local analysts that Mara Patani does not represent active groups operating on the ground.
Several bombings linked to separatist insurgents and occurring ahead of the talks targeted resort towns and government offices last month, leaving four dead.
The southern insurgency is rooted in a century-old ethno-cultural conflict between Malay Muslims living in the southern region and the Thai central state where Buddhism is considered the de-facto national religion.
Armed insurgents groups were formed in the 1960s after the then-military dictatorship tried to interfere in Islamic schools, but the insurgency faded in the 1990s.
In 2004, a rejuvenated armed movement — composed of numerous local cells of fighters loosely grouped around an organization called the National Revolutionary Front or BRN — emerged.
The confrontation is one of the deadliest low-intensity conflicts on the planet, with over 7,000 persons killed and over 11,000 injured since 2004.
