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Bomb explodes, killing two police in southern Thailand
A bomb exploded early Friday in the violence-plagued south of Thailand, killing two police officers and injuring two others, police said. The mobile phone-triggered device apparently targeted a unit of four police officers who were doing a security inspection to prepare a safe passage for teachers as they went to school, said police Col. Term Intarasara. The bomb exploded about two kilometers (a mile) from the school in Sungai Padi district of Narathiwat. "The police were on foot clearing a path before allowing teachers to go through, and the bomb planted on the roadside exploded," Term said. Two police died at the scene, and another was critically injured, while the fourth suffered minor injuries, he said. The explosion came two days after two marines were held hostage also in Narathiwat and killed by villagers who had blamed them for an earlier shooting incident. More than 3,000 police and military have been assigned to provide security for teachers in Thailand's three troubled Muslim-dominated provinces after a number of teachers were killed by suspected Muslim insurgents. These security patrols have frequently been targeted by roadside bomb attacks. The three southernmost provinces _ the only ones with Muslim majorities in the Buddhist-dominated country _ have been wracked by an Islamic separatist insurgency in which more than 1,000 people have died since January last year.
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