Car Bomb Explodes Outside CS Hotel Pattani-2 Killed

[sbk]

2 killed, 14 injured in car bomb attack at Pattani hotel

Pattani - A powerful bomb exploded Saturday at Pattani's popular CS Hotel, killing two and injuring at least 14, including owner Anusas Suwanmongkhol and Nation Multimedia Group journalist Pares Lohasen.

A smaller bomb had exploded at 8pm in a groundfloor restroom, causing little damage. Then 20 minutes later another was detonated outside the hotel coffee shop.

A security guard was killed instantly, and a hotel driver died later in hospital. Of the injured, five were taken to hospital. The explosion broke all the eightstorey hotel's windows.

Anusas is an appointed senator.

The bomb was hid inside a car parked in front of the hotel about 15 metres from the lobby.

Two of the injured were in critical condition.

The injured were rushed to the provincial hospital.

A security official said the car bomb might be linked to a failed car bomb attempt in Yala in which the alleged insurgent was killed in the afternoon because the two cars were from the same make and colour.

The security source said the insurgents chose the spot because leading figures often came to drink coffee and chat at the lobby.

The hotel is about 1 kilometre away from another hotel where the Thai Journalist Association was holding a seminar.

The source said while security officials stepped up protection of the hotel where the seminar was being held, security measures at CS Hotel might lax, allowing the attack to be made.

The Nation

Bombs kill two, wound 18 in Thai Muslim south

Sun Mar 16, 2008 12:35am EDT

Bomb kills one, wounds 12 in Muslim Thai south

15 Mar 2008

PATTANI, Thailand, March 16 (Reuters) - Bombs killed two men and wounded 18 people in two separate attacks in Thailand's troubled Muslim deep south, police said on Sunday.

A 20-kg (44 lb) remote-controlled bomb, hidden in a car near the entrance of a hotel in the city of Pattani, killed one man and wounded 13 others on Saturday, police said.

Three were injured seriously in the blast which destroyed more than a dozen cars and damaged the front of the CS Pattani hotel where officials visiting from Bangkok often stay.

Pattani is one of three far south provinces where more than 2,500 people have been killed in mostly gun and bomb attacks since a separatist insurgency erupted in January 2004.

Hours after the hotel bombing, suspected militants used a mobile phone to detonate a 5 kg bomb at a Pattani school, killing one firefighter and wounding five others. The firefighters were trying to put out a fire at the school when the bomb went off.

As security forces rushed the wounded to hospital, they were ambushed by insurgents. One soldier was wounded seriously, police said.

Security personnel along with Buddhist monks and government school teachers are prime targets for militants in the region, an independent sultanate until annexed by Thailand a century ago.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for attacks in the deep south, where most people speak a Malay dialect and where the government has stationed several thousand troops in a so far unsuccessful attempt to quell the unrest.

Reuters (Reporting by Surapan Boonthanom; Writing by Orathai Sriring; Editing by Darren Schuettler and Jerry Norton)

[klikster]

This really makes me sad. I spent several days at the CS Pattani several years ago. The GM(?) who was, I believe, part of the family spent several hours talking to me in the coffee shop. He was extremely personable and had attended unis in the US, England and Oz.