Insurgents murder three soldiers

Pattani - Suspected separatists on Friday ambushed three Thai soldiers in their pickup truck in the southern province of Pattani, riddling their bodies with bullets and finishing them off with shots to the head.

An unknown number of separatists opened fire on the pickup at 11:30 am as it drove down a road in Saiburi district, 750 kilometres south of Bangkok.

Killed in the attack were Lieutenant General Ekkawit Phandan and Sergeants Jarin Ankarna and Virat Insuwang. All three were found with multiple wounds and bullets to the back of the head.

"The insurgents can still get away with these attacks because they are supported by the people in the area," said Colonel Akkara Thiprote, army spokesman for the southern region.

Meanwhile, a bomb was detonated under a truck carrying seven people in nearby Yarang district, also in Pattani, injuring seven people including a pregnant woman.

The truck was carrying police and soldiers escorting teachers to the Kalae Snor school in Yarang.

The injured included two police officers, two soldiers and three female teachers, one of whom was nine months pregnant.

They were the latest of more than 6,000 violent incidents reported over the past three and a half years in Thailand's troubled deep South, the majority-Muslim region comprising Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala provinces and parts of Songkhla.

According to army data, some 2,500 people have died from the violence since January 1, 2004, when a two decade-long lull suddenly ended. Muslim militants, perhaps inspired by terrorist acts abroad, raided an army arms depot in January 2004, prompting a brutal government crackdown that year. (dpa)