Bomb Kills 1

More restiveness from the usual suspects.

Bomb kills 1, wounds 5 in Thailand's restive south

A bomb in Thailand's insurgency-plagued south killed a soldier and injured five others when it destroyed a pickup truck they were in Saturday, police said.

Suspected insurgents planted the bomb on a bridge in Pattani province's Mayo district, 750 kilometers (470 miles) south of Bangkok, said police Lt. Col. Chaiyapruek Phatiwarakorn.

Chaiyapruek said the six soldiers had been lured to the area to investigate a suspected bomb that turned out to be a hoax — but as they later passed the bridge a bomb exploded and instantly killed the driver, Sgt. Maj. Sermsak Kanchanaphet.

Five soldiers sitting in the back were wounded, Chaiyapruek said.

More than 2,400 people have been killed in Thailand's Muslim-majority southernmost provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, and southern part of nearby Songkhla, since a long-simmering Islamic separatist insurgency flared up in January 2004.

Government efforts to suppress the rebels have had little success, as the insurgents continue to carry out drive-by killings and small-scale bombings on a near-daily basis.