Motorcycle bomb wounds 28 in troubled Thai south

YALA, Thailand (Reuters) - Unknown assailants detonated a bomb in a busy market in Thailand's restive south on Monday, wounding 28 people in the latest attack in the Muslim-dominated region.

One soldier and three civilians were seriously wounded when the bomb, hidden in a motorcycle, was detonated remotely at the bustling morning market in Yala, one of three provinces bordering Malaysia and part of a region plagued by separatist violence.

Police said 24 others were also wounded. The blast follows a recent surge in the number of bombings targeting civilians, troop convoys and army checkpoints in the once independent Malay Muslim region.

The rubber-rich provinces, just a few hours drive from some of country's biggest tourist hotspots, were annexed by Buddhist Thailand in 1909 and separatist tensions have simmered ever since, fueled by army crackdowns and the government's failure to arrest those behind the killings of Muslims.

Despite deploying tens of thousands of police, soldiers and security guards in the region, the government has made little progress toward quelling the unrest, for which no group has claimed responsibility.

(Reporting by Surapan Boonthanom; Writing by Ploy Ten Kate; Editing by Martin Petty and Miral Fahmy)