Thai police say bombs in south kill 2

PATTANI, Thailand (AP) — Police say three bombs believed planted by Islamist militants exploded in the Thailand's restive south, killing two local government officials and wounding six others.

Police Col. Suthep Patarawirat says one bomb detonated Wednesday as a group of six local officials were driving into a rubber-tree plantation in the southern province of Yala, killing two of them and wounding four.

Suthep says the officials had gone to inspect a spot where another bomb exploded earlier in the day, wounding a villager.

Suthep says a soldier deployed by a bomb squad to search for explosive materials on the same plantation was also wounded in third blast the same day.

More than 4,300 people have been killed in a low-level Islamist insurgency in southern Thailand since 2004.