6 Thai soldiers wounded by checkpoint bomb-Origami peace bombs didn't work

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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/BKK318078.htm

BANGKOK, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Six Thai soldiers were wounded by an improvised bomb hidden under a road checkpoint in southern Thailand by suspected Muslim militants, police said on Wednesday.

The explosives, remotely triggered by a cellular phone late on Tuesday, had been planted in soft clay ground at the temporary checkpoint in predominantly Muslim Narathiwat province before the soldiers arrived, police told Reuters.

Most of the soldiers sustained nail and glass shrapnel wounds.

Narathiwat is in Thailand's deep south where an 11 month wave of violence blamed on criminal gangs and Muslim separatists has claimed nearly 500 lives.

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http://ww1.mid-day.com/news/world/2004/december/98746.htm

Thai Govt drops origami peace bombs

Bangkok: The Thai government has begun dropping an estimated one hundred million paper origami birds in an unusual peace bid.

The birds are being dropped by military planes over the country’s Muslim south after a surge of violence in the area.

Ordinary Thais across the nation have folded and written peace messages on the paper cranes in a campaign devised by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

But those critical of the campaign say it will not solve the complex problems that have caused the violence.

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