Seven killed in fresh Thai south clashes

SUSPECTED separatist militants shot dead a Muslim couple in troubled southern Thailand yesterday, while four insurgents and a villager were killed in other violence, police said.

The couple were riding on a motorcycle to a food market in the troubled town of Pattani - one of the worst hit areas in the Muslim-majority region - when they were killed in a drive-by shooting, said police.

Also yesterday, a 50-strong military unit entered the Sri Sakorn village of Narathiwat, 750km south of Bangkok after being tipped off that insurgents were in the area, Joint Police-Army Task Force Commander Lt Gen Kasikorn Kirisri said.

"There was a 10-minute clash that killed three of the insurgents, and two others captured," Kasikorn said.

In Pattani province, suspected insurgents killed Aduldoleh Banmusong, a plantation worker, and Lau Yalee, a fish stall owner, in two separate early morning attacks yesterday.

"The insurgents are trying to spread our forces thin and create confusion by launching separate incidents in different places at the same time," Kasikorn said.

After five years of violence in the three-province region bordering Malaysia, there is no sign of an abatement in the conflict, which has killed an estimated 3,700 people over the past five years.

Of the 300,000 Thai Buddhists who used to live in the region, about 70,000 have left since separatists raided an army depot in January 2004, killing four soldiers and making off with 300 weapons, leading to an escalation of the region's long-simmering separatist struggle.

The incident sparked a series of brutal government crackdowns on the separatist movement, which turned much of the area's 2 million people, against the central government.

Although the region, which centuries ago was the independent Islamic sultanate of Pattani, was conquered by Bangkok about 200 years ago, it has never wholly submitted to Thai rule.

Agencies