The war in southern Thailand is long-running and threatens to spread
On May 16 this year, a bomber walked unnoticed into a toy store in the main street of Yala, a town in southern Thailand only a few hours' drive from the country's main tourist beaches, and left a shopping bag packed with explosives.
Minutes later, a mobile telephone in the bag detonated the bomb that ripped through the store, one of three dozen blasts over three days in May that injured 22 people and terrified the town's population of 65,000.