July 1, 2009
NARATHIWAT, Thailand (AFP) - Islamic insurgents in southern Thailand shot dead a Myanmar migrant and killed a soldier in a roadside bomb attack in the latest violence to blight the region, police said Wednesday.
The 23-year-old Thai Buddhist soldier was on foot patrol on Tuesday evening when a bomb exploded in Pattani province, killing him at the scene, they said.
Shortly afterwards an unknown number of insurgents killed a 43-year-old Muslim food vendor, a migrant from Myanmar, in a drive-by shooting in Narathiwat province.
Four insurgents on motorcycles also shot and critically wounded a 46-year-old Thai Buddhist rubberwood buyer in Pattani on Tuesday night, police added.
More than 3,700 people have been killed in a five-year insurgency in the southern provinces of Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani, which has seen a spike in violence in recent weeks.
Rebels have targeted both Buddhists and Muslims, with victims ranging from security forces to civilians such as teachers and rubber plantation workers.
The region was an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until predominantly Buddhist Thailand annexed it in 1902, provoking decades of tension.
