TEHRAN, Jan 10 - Four paramilitary volunteers were killed Thursday while guarding a school in southern Thailand, the latest of several recent attacks in a region troubled by a Muslim separatist insurgency since 2004.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - An unknown number of attackers dressed like state security personnel approached the armed territorial defense volunteers guarding the school in Pattani province and shot them dead shortly before noon Thursday, police Lt. Col. Wicha Nupannoi said. The attackers took four HK33 assault rifles from their victims before fleeing, scattering nails and other material on the road to delay pursuers, he said.
Predominantly Buddhist Thailand's three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat have been plagued by a Muslim separatist insurgency that has claimed the lives of about 7,000 people since flaring in 2004, according to the research group Deep South Watch, which monitors the region.
On Tuesday, a bomb outside a school and a car bomb elsewhere exploded in nearby Songkhla province, wounding a 12-year-old student, a security guard for teachers and a police medic. A flurry of similar attacks took place in the last week of December. Several targeted Songkhla, which previously had been largely spared the violence.
Source: AP
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