Seven people including two teenagers have been killed in the Thai south, police said Wednesday, while 11 others were injured in a spate of bombings by suspected separatist rebels. Police on Wednesday found four bullet-riddled bodies in a house on a rubber plantation in yala, one of three Muslim-majority southern provinces.
The victims, all Muslims, were a 56-year-old rubber tapper and his 21-year-old daughter, and two brothers aged 15 and 18, police said, adding they were unsure if the brothers were related to the father and daughter.
Later Wednesday, a roadside bomb slightly injured four policemen who were returning from the site of the multiple killings. Police said the body of a suspected militant was also found near the blast site, his head apparently blown off.
Two other roadside bombings in Yala on Wednesday injured one soldier and six border patrol policemen, and a 48-year-old Buddhist man was shot dead by suspected rebels while driving a motorcycle.
Late Tuesday, a 40-year-old Buddhist man on a motorcycle was shot dead by insurgents in a drive-by shooting in nearby Pattani province. More than 2,200 people have been killed in a separatist insurgency in the Muslim-majority region since January 2004. Violence is growing despite peace-building moves by the military-installed government, which came to power after a coup in September 2006.