Suspected insurgents set fire to a backhoe, one road grader, a water truck and two utility poles in the southern border province of Pattani on Monday.

Six armed men, believed to be insurgents, arrived at a construction site in Village 1, Nam Dum sub-district of Thung Yang Daeng district on motorcycles and restrained two assistant headmen.

Then they poured gasoline on the three vehicles before setting them alight and escaping.

The three vehicles were heavily damaged, but the two assistant headmen were unharmed.

In nearby Yarang district, police reported that two telephone poles, located in two villages of Khao Toom sub-district, were torched, damaging surveillance cameras.

In Koh Pho district, a suspected explosive device was found attached to a utility pole on Route 409 in Na Pradu sub-district. An ordnance disposal squad went to defuse, what turned out to be, a fake bomb.

Pol Maj-Gen Pitwutthi Sa-nguansombatsiri, the provincial police commander, said that the incidents were perpetrated by insurgents to cause public disquiet ahead of the Songkran festival and Ramadan