Separatist rebels derailed a train in southern Thailand yesterday, police and railway officials said, injuring at least 16 people and forcing the suspension of services in the region.
Police blamed the incident on rebels who are fighting for a separate Muslim state in the southern region bordering Malaysia. They said that militants had sabotaged the track at night, removing removing nuts and bolts pinning the rails and loosening the connections between carriages, causing the derailment of a train.
"We have had to suspend all 18 train services from and to Hat Yai today as we have to check the damage to the tracks and take the derailed train out of the way after the sabotage," a senior rail official,Tanongsak Pongprasert, said.
The train was heading from Yala, one of three far southern provinces which have been the focus of the latest insurgency in the region which erupted in January 2004, to Hat Yai, the commercial center of the south.
No trains would run south of Hat Yai until the track inspections were complete after the derailment injured 12 passengers and two train staff, Tanongsak said.
It later emerged that insurgents had attempted to disrupt rail services across the south, with five other attacks on the same line. Rebels had either removed nails or lit fires along the track, but no one else was injured.
In April, suspected militants opened fire on a passenger train in the south, injuring three and forcing the suspension of services for a few days.
More than 2,100 people have been killed in the insurgency in a region which was an independent sultanate until it was annexed by overwhelmingly Buddhist Thailand a century ago.
The government in faraway Bangkok has sent 30,000 troops into the area, but has not been able to halt the daily killings and bombs for which the secretive insurgents never claim responsibility.
Muslims, who make up of more than 90 percent of the region's 1.8 million population, are unhappy with the presence of troops who are mostly Buddhists from other parts of the country, and demand their withdrawal.
Protesters are occupying the main mosque in Pattani, the capital of the far south province of the same name, since last week to demand Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont withdraw the troops.
They also demand he set up an independent body to investigate alleged wrongdoings by security forces in the region, including killing suspected militants without trial.
For the last five days, mobile phone signals have been switched off in the region, where most people speak Malay, to prevent insurgents using them to set off bombs.
Despite the violence and growing calls for more drastic action against the militants from Buddhist Thais, Surayud insists he remains committed to a peaceful resolution of the conflict.
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