A bomb hidden in a parked motorcycle killed two people and wounded five today outside a bank in Thailand's largely Muslim south, where authorities fear militants will step up attacks in the new year.
The bomb shattered windows up to the third floor of the Siam Commercial Bank branch in Sungai Kolok, a tourist town best known for a strip of bars and brothels that lure tourists from neighbouring Malaysia.
"It was the work of people bent on creating unrest. They stashed the bomb in a motorcycle and triggered it," Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told reporters in Bangkok as officials said 2,000 police would be sent south after January 1st.
Police said they believed the bomber was killed by the blast around 9 a.m near the bank's automated teller machine, although there was speculation it was triggered by mobile phone.
