Muslim rebels kill one, wound 18 in Thai south

Thu Jul 31, 2008 5:29am EDT

PATTANI, Thailand, July 31 (Reuters) - Suspected Muslim militants shot dead a Buddhist teacher and detonated a small bomb in a busy market in Thailand's Muslim south on Thursday, wounding 18 people, police said.

The teacher, 57, was shot dead by a man riding pillion on a motorcycle as he left his home for school in Pattani, one of the three southernmost provinces where more than 3,000 people have been killed in separatist violence since 2004.

In the nearby province of Narathiwat, a militant used a mobile phone to detonate a 5-kg (11-lb) bomb hidden in a motorcycle at a market, wounding two soldiers and 16 civilians, one of them a six-month-old girl, police said.

Thai authorities feared a spike in violence after an unknown rebel group the Thailand United Southern Underground announced a "ceasefire" two weeks ago.

The group claimed to represent 11 insurgent groups but security experts and officials said its leaders had no influence in the region and other rebel organisations might well step up their campaigns to show the apparent ceasefire was not for real.

The Thai army identified the group's leader as Malipeng Khan, a separatist active in the 1980s in the region, a Muslim sultanate annexed by predominately Buddhist Thailand a century ago.

The rubber-producing region bordering Malaysia has been ravaged by daily violence since 2004, although the shadowy rebels behind it have never revealed themselves or claimed responsibility. (Reporting by Surapan Boonthanom; Writing by Nopporn Wong-Anan; Editing by Ed Cropley and Valerie Lee)



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