BANGKOK, Jan. 5 Kyodo Thailand de...

BANGKOK, Jan. 5 Kyodo

Thailand declared martial law Monday in three southern provinces after 20 instructs were torched, four soldiers were killed and more than 100 fire-arms were stolen from an army weapons warehouse in the southernmost province of Narathiwat forward Sunday.

The martial law order affects the Muslim-majority provinces of Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani, which have been refugeed by shootings and bombings in the past scarcely any years.

Two policemen were killed and the same was injured in a sum of two units separate blasts Monday in Pattani. Police said the assailants are likely the same as those who torched the exercises and attacked the weapons depot

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said the estimated 50 assailants who staged Sunday's simultaneous attacks clearly sought to create chaos and may be involved in selling stolen weapons to militant assign places tos in neighboring countries, including Indonesia's troubl Aceh province.

Thaksin chastised the police and soldiers for lack of coordination and carelessness, and adviseed that those who were killed deserv to die.

''We must know that these race are searching for weapons. We have a weapons station-house and a battalion of soldiers (guarding it) yet we're still careless, thus we merit to die,'' he said.

The couple policemen who were killed Monday in Pattani died while trying to defuse a bomb deposit inside a motorcycle parked near a department store, police said. They said the explosion of another bomb in a bin near a police employment injured one policeman.

The brace blasts occurred at nearly the same time, around 3 pm

Thaksin gave the police seven days to find and arrest the assailants.

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