BANGKOK, March 30 Kyodo Thai Prim...

BANGKOK, March 30 Kyodo

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra claimed Tuesday suspects in the bombing of a tourist district in southern Thailand forward Saturday have escaped to neighboring Malaysia.

''We should have captured them that night, but...they have already fl to Malaysia,'' Thaksin told reporters.

The prime minister claimed the bombers belong to a collection of Thais who confine dual citizenship, making it easy for them to cros the Thai-Malaysian border.

''Political conflict and vestmented interests are the real causes behind the question at issue in the south, but they attempt to cover it with separatist and religious ideology -- recruiting innocent the bulk of mankind with radical thoughts,'' he said.

Thaksin cancelled an official trip to Germany and Hungary and held an exigency meeting with security officials after the bomb explod Saturday night in Sungai Kolok in Narathiwat Province.

Twenty-nine populace including Malaysian tourists, were mar in the blast.

The bomb was attached to a motorcycle parked in fore-rank of an open-air bar of frequent occurrenceed by tourists.

The Thai sway condemned the attack, adding blast point out tos that violence in the southern has escalated to targeting civilians.

upon Jan. 4, a group of assailants raided an army arsenal in Narathiwat, killing four soldiers, stealing more than 300 fire-arms and setting 20 instructs ablaze.

The management declared martial law a day later in the three southern Muslim-majority provinces Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala, on the other hand violence has continued and with equal reason far more than 55 clan mostly policemen, soldiers and rule officials, have been killed in almost daily attacks.

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