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Tuesday, 27 June 2006 |
Thailand's south has been rocked again by violence after at least seven people were killed from bombings and shootings in Yala province, police said.
One bomb attack killed five secrutiy officers as they were escorting teachers on their way to school early Tuesday morning. The explosion killed one Buddhist soldier, while four volunteering Muslim officers were shot in the head at point blank range by waiting rebels, police Colonel Jirasak Wikraicharoenying.
Another bomb was found in Narathiwas province, but police were able to defuse it. Muslim militants are targeting schools and teachers because they believe the education system is imposing Thai Buddhist culture in a majority Muslim and ethnic Malay region. Armed convoys protect teachers to and from work, while security guard schools during the day.
Meanwhile, militants are being blamed for a separate incident involving a drive-by shooting, which killed two Muslim men, said authorities.
The Muslim insurgency in Thailand's three southern border provinces has been building since Thailand annexed an ethnic Malay sultanate there one hundred years ago. Uprisings erupted in the 1970s and in early 2004 with more than 1,300 lives lost in the past 18 months.
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