PATTANI: Muslim militants fighting for a separate state in the south of predominantly Buddhist Thailand were suspected of carrying out a car-bomb attack on Tuesday outside a supermarket in the city of Pattani that wounded 42 people, police said. A decades-old separatistinsurgencyin the largely ethnic Malay Muslim provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat has 1(illed more than 6,500 people since 2004, according to independent monitoring group Deep South Watch.

Two of the 42 wounded were in a critical condition, authorities said. The first car bombinPattanisinceAugust destroyed the front of a Big-C supermarket, scattering debris over a wide area and sending up a column of black smoke.-Reuters