BANGKOK (Reuters) - At least a dozen bombs exploded in southern Thailand on Thursday, wounding several people in a region where ethnic Malay insurgents are active, police said.

"I received reports that there were bombs at 14 points," said Thai police spokesman Lieutenant General Prawut Thawornsiri.

Twelve people were wounded but no deaths were reported, the army's Internal Security Operations Command spokesman, Pramote Prommin, said.

The blasts, all in and around Yala, a provincial capital city, were small and appeared aimed at spreading panic rather than killing, Prawut said.

More than 6,000 people have been killed in Thailand's three southernmost provinces since 2004 in low-level insurgency waged by Muslim Malays again the Buddhist-majority country's government.