Eight Police Officers Injured in Bomb Attack in Southern Thailand’s Pattani Province

(CTN News) – In southern Thailand, in the province of Pattani, eight police officers from the Sai Buri Police Station were injured last night in a bomb attack while on patrol. There was vandalism to two police cars.

Eight Police Officers Injured in Bomb Attack in Southern Thailand

Eleven officers patrolled the Sai Buri neighborhood in two pick-up trucks before the incident. At around 10:45 p.m., the cops were driving along the Ban Pa Thung – Bang Kao Road in the Bang Khao subdistrict when the device was triggered. The perpetrators of the attack escaped.

One officer was hit by flying shrapnel, and seven others reported symptoms such as tinnitus and chest tightness after the blast. Everyone was transported to the emergency rooms of Pattani’s Crown Prince Sai Buri Hospital.

Police Captain Kittikhun Pongpetch, Police Senior Sergeant Major Anon Wanthong, Police Sergeant Teeranat Pinnukit, Police Constables Sukhum Laichan and Sanya Makmool, and Police Constable Sangha Cheecho, who was wounded in the elbow, were among the injured.

Given the history of insurgency attacks on police officers and other Thai state representatives since unrest flared in Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, and areas of Songkhla in 2004, it is assumed that insurgents were responsible for the incident.

Previous Bomb Attacks Targeting Security Personnel in Southern Thailand

In the southern Thai province of Narathiwat in February, eight subdistrict security personnel were hurt when a bomb went off while patrolling the Reuso district’s railway line.

When the security personnel returned to their post, they passed by a spot where the attackers had put improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which they set off.

During that same month, Pol. Maj. Prasan Kongprasit, an inspector at the Bannang Sata Police Station in the Yala province, was killed when a bomb went off as he and other officers were checking the crime scene of an arson assault.

One police officer was murdered, and at least twenty were injured in a car bomb explosion at police quarters in Narathiwat province in November of last year. Before the vehicle bomb went off, a man in a police uniform drove a pickup truck into the compound.

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