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| Southeast Asia |
| 4 killed in new Thai violence |
| 2009-07-29 |
| [Straits Times] SUSPECTED separatist insurgents in Thailand's troubled south shot dead four civilians while a remote-controlled bomb wounded five other people, police said on Tuesday. Militants gunned down a Buddhist man and his wife in an ambush early on Tuesday while they were travelling by motorbike to tap rubber in restive Pattani province, police said. As police investigated the shooting, militants detonated a bomb hidden beneath the bodies of the couple, wounding three policemen and two villagers, they added. Also in Pattani a gunman posing as a wedding guest shot dead a Muslim man at a marriage ceremony on Monday evening, police said. Earlier on Monday, a painter was shot dead in a drive-by shooting as he rode a motorbike to a local teashop, also in Pattani. The southern provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala and parts of Songkhla made up an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until it was annexed by Thailand in 1902, sparking decades of tension. More than 3,700 people have died since an insurgency erupted five years ago. Islamic rebels have targeted both Buddhists and Muslims, with victims ranging from security forces to civilians such as teachers and workers on rubber plantations. |
| Posted by:Fred |