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BANGKOK : Thai authorities have detained a second suspect in the deadly car bomb attack in the kingdom's deep south, where bloody violence blamed on a separatist revolt has raged, police said Sunday.
The two were being questioned about the unprecedented car bomb blast that killed six people and wounded 44 late Thursday in the border town of Sungai Golok.
"Two men have been detained and are under interrogation for the bombing," a senior police officer in Narathiwat province, where the blast occurred, told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"We believe they are involved in making the bomb and placing it at the site" in a nightlife district near the Marina Hotel, he added.
"The second suspect's house was searched in Sukhirin district (in Narathiwat) and we found bomb-making materials."
Thai media, citing authorities, reported that sacks of urea fertilizer, four bars of C4 explosive, fuses, blasting caps and mobile phone components were found at the house of the latest detainee, identified by newspapers as Bueraheng Waemama, 36.
Police have said they believe the Sungai Golok blast was triggered by a mobile phone.
"He confessed he is a bomb-maker for hire...but he denies any involvement in the Marina Hotel blast," police General Paisarn Chaiyabut said in the Nation newspaper.
Thailand on Friday arrested the first suspect, 30-year-old Thai Habeeza Jaeduloh, who the military said fled the scene minutes after the blast by stealing a car.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who cut short a trip to the south just two hours before the blast, said the suspect was tied to a "powerful network" for whom arrest warrants had been issued, Sunday's Nation newspaper said.
The premier did not name the suspect.
Thursday's blast was the deadliest single bombing in a campaign of violence that has gripped the Muslim-dominated south for the past 13 months and claimed about 600 lives.
A "worried" Malaysia on Saturday advised its citizens to avoid travelling to neighbouring southern Thailand after the blast, its official Bernama news agency said, quoting Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak. - AFP
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