A car bomb exploded Monday in Thailand's violence-wracked southern city of Yala, killing one paramilitary soldier and injuring 23 people, officials said , dpa reported
The bomb, planted in a passenger car parked in the business district, exploded as a pickup carrying paramilitary rangers passed by, police said.
The soldier who was killed was burned in the resulting fire while those injured consisted of rangers and civilians standing nearby.
Yala Governor Krissida Boonrad did not immediately blame the usual suspects, Muslim militants.
"I've heard that this might have been an effort to discredit me," Krissada said.
The governor last month persuaded the military to leave security matters up to municipal officials after the city was subject to several bomb blasts that the army failed to prevent.
Yala, 750 kilometres south of Bangkok, is part of Thailand's majority-Muslim deep South, which has been the scene of escalating violence since January 2004 when militants raided a military arms depot, killing five soldiers and making off with 350 semi-automatic rifles.
After that raid, the army launched a series of attacks on the separatists, including an assault on a centuries-old mosque, that antagonized the local population. The violence has claimed more than 4,100 lives over the past seven years.
The region has been under emergency decree since 2004, which allows authorities to make arrests without charges, detain suspects for weeks and grants security forces some immunity from prosecution for actions carried out in the line of duty.
The region of 2 million inhabitants was an independent Islamic sultanate until it was conquered by Bangkok about 200 years ago. The ethnic Malay Muslims living there have never wholly submitted to rule by the central government
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