YALA, Thailand (Reuters) - Three bombs exploded on Thailand's border with Malaysia on Friday, killing three people and wounding at least 60, hours after suspected insurgents walked into a packed mosque and shot dead two Muslims.
A bomb hidden on a motorbike exploded outside an ethnic Chinese community organisation in a border town of Thailand's Sungai Kolok district, in Narathiwat province, police said.
That was followed by another motorbike bomb and a car bomb outside two hotels on a busy street lined with bars.
The dead included a tourist from Malaysia, police said.
Ethnic Malay Muslims form the majority of the population in Thailand's three southernmost provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, where an insurgency has killed nearly 4,800 people since 2006.
The attack came hours after a police officer and a defence volunteer were gunned down in a mosque in Yala province by four Muslims believed to be separatists. There were nearly 100 witnesses, police said.
The main targets for the shadowy militants are members of the security forces, teachers and government officials, but Muslims are often killed for working for the Thai state or acting as informants.
The region was an independent sultanate a century ago before it became part of mostly Buddhist Thailand.
Shootings in mosques have happened several times in the three provinces.
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