Updated

Police say six people were killed and 11 others wounded in a series of attacks in Thailand's insurgency-plagued south.

Three women were killed by a motorcycle bomb that exploded late Friday night near a karaoke bar in the border town of Padang Besar, while arson was blamed for the deaths of three people at a shop in Sungai Kolok, another border town.

Police say attackers suspected to be Muslim separatists threw giant firecrackers at restaurants, detonated a bomb in front of a hotel and set fire to two other shops in Sungai Kolok. In Yala province, improvised bombs toppled eight electricity transmission towers.

More than 5,000 people in Thailand's southernmost have been killed since the insurgency began in 2004.