February 16, 2010
NARATHIWAT, Thailand (AFP) - Militants shot dead three Muslim rubber farmers and a firefight left a suspected insurgent dead in the latest unrest in southern Thailand, police said Tuesday.
The 32-year-old militant was shot as insurgents ambushed a group of government officials and their guards on a road in the province of Narathiwat late on Monday.
The district officials were returning from a village meeting in a mosque when their car was attacked and a gunfight ensued between the security guards and the suspected militants. Five of the officials were wounded.
Earlier Monday in the same district, Rangae, a mother and daughter, aged 50 and 25, were shot dead while at work on a rubber farm. That evening a 36-year-old Muslim man was shot dead while working at another rubber farm in the same district.
More than 4,100 people have died and thousands more have been injured during a six-year separatist rebellion in Thailand's troubled southernmost provinces bordering Malaysia.
The shadowy militant groups never publicly state their goals but have targeted Buddhists and Muslims, civilians and security forces, in their campaign against central government control.
The region was an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until it was annexed in 1902 by mainly Buddhist Thailand and tensions have bubbled there ever since, escalating into the current insurgency in January 2004.
