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Four Muslims, one Buddhist killed in Thai south
Four Muslims and a Buddhist were killed and six troops wounded in four separate attacks in Thailand's rebellious Muslim-majority far south, police said on Wednesday.At least 10 masked gunmen fired into a Muslim village late on Tuesday, killing three men and a woman, police said in Yala, one of the three southern provinces caught up in three years of separatist insurgency in which more than 2,100 people have died. "They used all sorts of guns, shooting ramdomly" and the four people were killed in different houses, a police investigator told Reuters by telephone. The identity of the gunmen was unknown, but police presumed they were separatists, although Muslims accuse government supporters of killings. On Wednesday, a Buddhist government official was shot dead by a gunman riding pillion on a motorcycle while he was heading to work in the city of Yala on his own motorcycle, they said. Shortly after, a 20 kg (44-lb) bomb in a fire extinguisher exploded on a road in nearby Yaha district as a truck carrying 10 soldiers drove past, wounding three slightly, police said. In the nearby district of Than To, militants ambushed another patrol truck of soldiers with guns and a roadside bomb, wounding three, they said. And: Insurgents exploded a bomb at a police office in southern Thailand's province of Yala early Thursday, prompting a nearby school to close for the day, according to local newspaper Bangkok Post's website. There was no report of casualties from the attack and damage was being assessed. Posted by: ryuge 2007-05-24 |
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