As the SIM card registration program has failed to even slow down the number of bombs in the South, the government is considering jamming ALL mobile phone service there...

South mobile ban

Published on August 25, 2005

Education Minister Chaturon Chaisang said yesterday the government was mulling a ban on all mobile-phone services in the three southernmost provinces as most of the bombs there are detonated remotely.

Since May, the government has required mobile-phone users in the region to register in a bid to curb the spate of bombings.

At least 32 bombs were set off in the Muslim-majority South between July and mid-August, according to government statistics.

Chaturon said Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had the power to enforce a mobile-phone blackout under an emergency decree approved by the Cabinet last week.

Meanwhile, a former deputy village chief was gunned down in gangland style yesterday, while a bomb squad succeeded in defusing an explosive placed under a roadside pavilion which patrolling troops use for their breaks. Both incidents took place in Pattani. The former deputy village chief Mayakee Saree, 42, was shot dead while having tea with friends in front of his house.

Investigating officials said the attacker got round the back of the house, and opened fire with an M-16 rifle, hitting Mayakee with four shots before running away into the forest. No one else was injured.

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