BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Attackers in southern Thailand slashed the necks of a couple, almost severing their heads in the latest killings attributed to Islamic separatists in the region, police said Friday. | Well, who else is fond of lopping off heads? |
The couple, Jad Suwanchatri, 52, and his wife, Serm, 51, had stopped their motorcycle to clear a log from a road in Yala province when assailants shot Jad and then cut the throats of the couple, police Lt. Somporn Ritthirat said Friday. The couple's dog, which was in a sidecar, also was slashed to death, he said. The couple were rubber plantation workers, Buddhists and members of a local defense militia. | And dog owners, that's un-islamic as well. |
Drive-by shootings and bombings have claimed the lives of more than 880 people since January 2004 in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat provinces, which are dominated by Muslims in this overwhelmingly Buddhist country. It was unclear exactly when the couple was killed, but police were notified early Friday of the attack, which apparently was a failed beheading, police said. | They're still dead, right? |
On Wednesday, insurgents decapitated a man at a teashop in one of the most brazen attacks since a wave of violence swept the provinces near Malaysia early last year. It was the fifth beheading in recent weeks and apparently the first carried out in daylight. The first victim beheaded, also a rubber plantation worker, was slain in May 2004. The brutal killing caused widespread fear and prompted many workers to stop tapping rubber at night, when the work is usually done, and go out in the morning instead.
Also Friday, two unidentified gunmen shot and killed Kobkua Ransaewa, a school principal in Narathiwat province, while she was riding a motorcycle away from the school at lunchtime. The school temporarily closed after the incident. | Another brave attack by the Lions of Islam. |
The upsurge in violence has been attributed to the return of a decades-old secessionist movement believed to have faded after a government amnesty in the 1980s. Southern Thai Muslims have long complained of unfair treatment by the central government, mainly in jobs and education. |