THAILAND'S restive south was hit by fresh bomb blasts and shootings that left two people dead and 16 injured, police said on Friday. They said suspected separatist militants shot dead a 29-year-old policeman in Narathiwat province and a 36-year-old Muslim deputy village chief in neighbouring Yala province late on Thursday.
On Friday nine soldiers were wounded, two seriously, when their army truck was hit by a roadside bomb during a routine patrol in Yala.
It was the fourth bomb attack to be blamed on southern militants in two days.
Two army rangers were also injured in a separate bombing in Narathiwat on Friday.
On Thursday three people including a policeman on foot patrol were injured in an explosion in Yala town, while two soldiers were hit by a blast in Narathiwat.
More than 3,600 people have been killed and thousands more injured in five years of separatist violence in the Muslim-majority provinces near the Malaysian border.
Buddhist-majority Thailand annexed the mainly Muslim, ethnic Malay area in 1902, sparking decades of tension and mistrust.