Bangkok: Suspected Muslim insurgents set off five bombs early today in a Thai-Malaysian border tourist town, wounding 27 people, many of them New Year's revelers, an army spokesman said.

The bombs exploded in the hotel and nightlife area of Sungai Kolok, including two inside a hotel discotheque and one hidden in the carrying basket of a motorcycle outside a hotel, said spokesman Col Akara Thiprote.

"Sungai Kolok is a tourist town and people were here to celebrate the New Year. I think this is why they targeted the town," Akara said.

Sungai Kolok in Narathiwat province attracts many tourists from neighboring Malaysia and has been attacked several times in recent years. One of the 27 wounded may have been a Malaysian, Akara said.

More than 2,600 people have been killed in the Muslim-majority southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, and some parts of neighboring Songkhla, since a long-simmering Islamic separatist insurgency flared up in January 2004.

Thailand's population is about 90 per cent Buddhist, and many of the country's Muslims feel they are treated as second-class citizens.
Source : PTI