Suspected separatist militants in Thailand’s restive south have shot dead three men in separate fresh attacks, police said Monday. Security forces and civilians have been killed in a recent spate of violence.
A 31-year-old man in Pattani province was killed in a drive-by shooting Monday morning in the latest wave of attacks by suspected Islamic militants.
In neighbouring Yala province, a 48-year-old rubber plantation owner was shot dead in an ambush as he returned home by motorbike on Sunday evening. The same day a 65-year-old gold seller was shot five times through his shop door in Narathiwat province.
The attacks come on the heels of Friday's car bomb explosion in Yala province, south of Bangkok.
Two soldiers were killed and five people wounded after the bomb, which was hidden inside a parked pick-up truck, detonated. The blast had hit a group of six soldiers traveling in a car to inspect an unattended gas canister left by the roadside.
More than 3,700 people have been killed in Thailand's southern-most provinces since an insurgency flared in January 2004. The provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala and parts of Songkhla made up an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until it was annexed by Thailand in 1902.
Islamic rebels have targeted both Buddhists and Muslims, with victims ranging from security forces to civilians.
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