At least two persons were killed early Thursday and 17 others wounded in 21 simultaneous explosions at government offices and police stations in Thailand's three southernmost border provinces, and caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra blamed police for failing to prevent such a wave of bomb attacks.

After the blasts, Thaksin pointed the fingers to police despite claiming that he had intelligence information that separatist militants would strike.

"As a matter of fact, authorities knew that there would be attacks today, but they did not pay enough attention, which resulted in the loss of life," Thaksin told reporters in his hometown of Chiang Mai province.

Thaksin said he planned to visit the troubled south soon and rejected claims that his crackdown there since early 2004 had caused the long-running insurgency to flare up in Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat provinces.

Meanwhile, speaking to journalists in Bangkok after at least 21 explosions hit the kingdom's far south, Interior Minister Kongsak Wanthana said that the authorities were warned that such attacks could occur Thursday, the anniversary of the declaration of an independent Pattani state.

Kongsak said the militants had made the bombs outside Thailand, without specifying which country, adding "it's difficult to find bomb-making materials here."

"The militants wanted to stage a show of force and signal that they can still mount attacks," he told reporters. "The bombs caused minimal losses because they were low-impact bombs."

Thai government facilities in Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala were targets of apparently coordinated attacks Thursday morning. All 12 districts of Pattani province experienced bomb incidents.

One man was dead in a blast at a tea shop near the Khok Pho district office in Pattani, which wounded 10 others.

A second fatality occurred when a local government worker's vehicle blew up while being inspected at Pattani City Hall. An government worker enroute to his office was warned by an alert security guard who detected a suspicious object beneath the vehicle and advised the driver to get out of the car.

The driver escaped but moments later the explosion killed the guard and injured two others.

In Yala, bombs exploded at district offices and a police station in six districts. A police officer's car was completely destroyed in a bomb explosion near the provincial seat.

Five Marines were wounded while traveling in an eight-man group by ferry. The bomb exploded as the boat docked at a pier.

The interior minister blamed insurgents whom he said were behind sabotage to create disturbances in the region.

Military told Xinhua that the bombs were all located at or near the local government buildings, police stations and jails and all the homemade bombs were triggered by mobile phone signals at about 8:00 a.m. local time (0100 GMT).

Pracha Terat, the governor of Narathiwat, told Xinhua in a phone interview that all the bombs did not targeted local people but to make violent situation. He said he had just got the information that a group of insurgents across the border had smuggled around 100 bombs into Thailand from Malaysia.

At least 1,200 people have been killed since unrest broke out in January 2004 in the mainly Muslim provinces along Thailand's border with Malaysia. The violence was blamed on a complex web of Islamic separatists, local corruption and organized crime.

Source: Xinhua