Three men have been detained in this southern border province in connection with last Sunday night's series of deadly attacks that killed seven persons across the Muslim-predominantly region, Thailand News Agency (TNA) quoted a regional senior military officer as saying today. Lieutenant General Viroch Buacharoon, Fourth Army Region Commander who oversees military operations in the troubled region, told a media conference that the three suspects confessed that they were assigned to carry out the attacks. They also implicated others for involvement in the major attacks during Chinese New Year celebrations, Gen Viroch said, adding that one of the suspects staged the attack in Songkhla's Thepha district while the others committed violent acts in Narathiwat's Bacho district. The senior army officer also disclosed that the three men had been given drinks that contained narcotics and cough syrup before they carried out the attacks. The general was referring to the incident in which over 100 militants were killed after nine hours of violent clashes between the authorities and insurgents in Pattani. Of these, 32 people were killed inside the Krue Se mosque after heavily armed security forces stormed into the holy place. The Internal Security Operations Command announced earlier that suspected militants launched 54 nearly simultaneous attacks on Feb 18 including 29 bomb blasts, 11 arson attacks on government buildings and schools and at least five shooting incidents.
