Quote:Insurgents kill 9 in shuttle bus attack

(BangkokPost.com) - Southern extremists opened fire on a shuttle van loaded with passengers in Yala's Yaha district Wednesday morning, killing nine Buddhist civilians including two teenage girls.

Three men and six women, including two girls aged 14 and 15, were shot in the head after the insurgents forced the van off the road. The bus driver, a Muslim man, was seriously injured.

The van, which shuttled between Betong district of Yala and Hat Yai district of Songkhla, was ambushed in broad daylight at around 8.50 a.m.

Police said insurgents placed logs on the road to force the van to slow down, which was the moment when they opened fire on the minibus. When it veered off the road, the militants got on and shot the passengers.

After the attack, insurgents threw nails to slow down police. They also placed a suspicious box near the van, which exploded after police and soldiers arrived at the scene but was not planted close enough to wound anyone.

Army spokesman Colonel Akara Thiprote condemned the attack and said the insurgents only attacked people who cannot protect themselves.

"The insurgents attack people who are defenceless and they choose any target. They attack anybody, it doesn't matter if they are Buddhist or Muslim," he told Deutsche Press-Agentur dpa.

Meanwhile, in Bannang Sata district, insurgents ambushed and shot a police officer, who was rushed to a hospital by villagers.

The attacks took place on the anniversary of the founding of the Barisan Revolusi Nasional Melayu Pattani (BRN) separatist movement, which the government had feared would be marked by major attacks.

Quote:At least 10 die, 21 wounded as terror continues in southern Thailand

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP): Execution-style killings, a bombing at a mosque and a grenade attack at a tea shop left at least 10 people dead and more than 20 others injured in a brutal day of violence targeting Muslims and Buddhists in restive southern Thailand, police said Thursday.

Late Wednesday, assailants in a pickup truck hurled a hand grenade and sprayed assault rifle fire at a roadside restaurant in the Yaha district of Yala province, said police Lt. Surat Chanjao.

Two Muslims died in the attack and at least 10 more were wounded, Surat said.

Yala is among Thailand's three Muslim majority southernmost provinces where an Islamic insurgency has left at least 2,000 people dead in the past three years.

Earlier in the day, also in Yaha district, eight Buddhist commuters were ambushed by gunmen and slain on a major highway and a bomb outside a mosque wounded 11 Muslim worshippers.

No one has claimed responsibility for any of Wednesday's violence.

Thai authorities blamed Muslim insurgents for all of the attacks, saying the insurgents wanted to make it appear as if the authorities had engaged in tit-for-tat killings.

"They were trying to trick villagers into believing that the authorities acted in retaliation for the insurgent massacre of the van commuters,'' by targeting Muslims in the tea shop and mosque attacks, said army spokesman Col. Akara Thiprot. "Actually the insurgents were responsible for the attacks.''

Col. Apirat Sangkhao, the Yaha district police chief, described the mosque bombing as "an attempt to pit Muslims against Buddhists.''

Akara said the mosque bombing took place in a village where residents do not cooperate with the insurgents, who otherwise have a strong influence in the district.

Relations between the Muslim and Buddhist communities in the region are tense, but until now there has been little sign that Buddhists were retaliating to the renewed violence that has claimed mostly civilian lives.

A van carrying Buddhist commuters in Yaha was forced to stop in an ambush early Wednesday because a tree had been placed across the road, said police Lt. Kitti Mankhong, a duty officer in Yaha district.

The attackers dragged some of their victims from the van and shot them "in the head at close range, execution style,'' including two 16-year-old schoolgirls, Kitti said. Others were shot inside the vehicle.

One passenger and the Muslim driver, who was shot in the face, survived the attack.

The driver told police he heard the gunmen say "kill them all'' in the local Malay dialect which is widely spoken among Muslims in the south instead of Thai, Yaha district chief Suppanat Sirunthawinet said.

"Thais have never seen such a cruel incident. A mother was hugging her daughter as they died,'' Suppanat said, adding that the driver said his life was spared because the gunmen heard him praying for his life.

Police and soldiers were searching for the attackers, Kitti said.

Drive-by shootings and bombings occur almost daily in Thailand's three Muslim-majority provinces _ Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani.

Quote:The terror is escalating

Quote:Attack on school leads to stand-off

Two students killed, 300 villagers protest

VICHAYANT BOONCHOTE, WADAO HARAI and AFP

Songkhla _ About 300 villagers rallied in Saba Yoi district after gunmen sprayed bullets and threw grenades at a Muslim boarding school, killing two students and injuring eight others.

The protest took place on the same day as about 2,000 village scouts rallied in Bangkok protesting against the passenger van massacre last week in which eight people were killed, and a report that 24 Thais had crossed the border to Malaysia to flee trouble in the South.

Unidentified attackers shot and threw grenades at 10 students of Bamrungsart Ponoh school on Saturday night. The group had returned to the school from a funeral prayer meeting held for a villager in the district, according to Thammasak Wasasiri, chief of the Saba Yoi police station.

Two boys were killed. The students were identified as Rorsalee Pasor, 12, and Kreeya Sulong, 14. Two boys and six men were injured.

At 7am yesterday, 300 villagers gathered in front of the school in Ban Kuan Lan to express their anger about the attack, amid rumours that rangers were behind the killings. They barred authorities, including border patrol police, from entering the school compound.

As the stand-off intensified, Songkhla governor Sonthi Techanant, top police officers and religious leaders in the province went to the area to negotiate with the protesters, to let them enter the crime scene.

The negotiations led by Akis Pitakkumpol, chairman of the Islamic Committee of Songkhla, continued until 4pm, when the protesters agreed to leave.

The provincial governor said talks enabled both sides to clear up misunderstandings. Authorities would enter the school today to look for evidence.

"Although villagers decided to disperse, authorities will not go to the school until morning," the governor said.

Pol Lt-Col Thammasak said authorities could not enter the school immediately after learning about the attack because the road to the village was blocked by a fallen tree and spikes.

The attackers turned their attention to Saba Yoi yesterday, where three people were killed and another three injured in separate incidents, Pol Lt Pornchai Buaruam of the district police station said.

Resident Soothon Thongyami died on the way to hospital after attackers shot him on his motorbike. Driver Manoch Wangmai from Nakhon Sawan was also injured.

Ornsiri Butsai and her mother, Samai, from Roi Et were found dead at their workplace, while her father, Buala, and See Kuankhon were injured. Witnesses said they were shot by two attackers shooting from a motorcycle.

In Bangkok, about 2,000 village scouts converged from across the country for a mass rally along Phahon Yothin road, ending at their head office inside the border patrol police headquarters. They denounced the ambush of a van commuting between Betong district in Yala and Hat Yai in Songkhla on Wednesday, when attackers shot dead eight passengers.

The scouts demanded an end to the brutal killings in the far South, which were taking the lives of innocent people.

The van ambush in Yaha district was followed by shootings the same day, in front of a mosque in the same district. The attacks forced the army to declare a curfew in Yaha and neighbouring Bannang Sata districts.

Lt-Gen Viroj Buacharoon, chief of the Fourth Army Region responsible for the South, said yesterday that 28 members of separatist group Rundi Kumpulan Kecil, trying to destabilise the deep South, had been rounded up in Yaha district of Yala and Rueso and Sungai Padi districts of Narathiwat.

They were found with weapons and leaflets with messages denouncing authorities, he said.

Meanwhile, a group of 24 Muslims has fled to Malaysia to escape alleged intimidation by the military, said AFP, quoting a report in the Star newspaper yesterday.

Apparently fearing for their safety, the group complained that they had been beaten and their sons had gone missing or been detained since 2005.

The group from Narathiwat arrived in Muslim-majority Malaysia's Rantau Panjang village on Saturday through an illegal crossing.