A remote-controlled bomb has exploded in violence-plagued southern Thailand, wounding nine people, including three monks, police said. Police Lt. Fahamee Hengpiya said the monks were collecting alms when a bomb hidden in a planter on the sidewalk went off Monday morning. The wounded include three police who were escorting the monks and three elderly men who were nearby. Narathiwat, Yala, Pattani and parts of Songkla provinces are the only Muslim-majority areas in predominantly Buddhist Thailand. Nearly 5,000 people have been killed since an Islamist insurgency erupted in the region in 2004.