Three killed in attacks in Thai Muslim south

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Separatist militants in Thailand's Muslim deep south have killed three Thais, including two security officers, in a spate of violence days after an unknown rebel group announced a "ceasefire".

One soldier was killed and five wounded on Tuesday when their patrol was ambushed in the southern province of Narathiwat, one of three provinces where a four-year-old insurgency has killed more than 3,000 people.

Gunmen fired on the 12-man patrol after setting off a large roadside bomb, police said.

On Monday, six policemen and a civilian in the nearby province of Yala were wounded in a bomb attack. One of the officers died later in hospital.

That same day in Narathiwat, a village chief was shot dead by suspected militants as he road home on a motorcycle.

The near daily gun and bomb attacks have not stopped since the Thailand United Southern Underground, which claimed to represent 11 insurgent groups, announced a "ceasefire" last week. Security experts swiftly dismissed the announcement they said was made by a group which had no influence in the region.

The Thai army identified the group's leader as Malipeng Khan, a separatist active in the 1980s who had failed to unify insurgent factions in the region annexed by predominately Buddhist Thailand a century ago.

Since the latest violence erupted in 2004, the shadowy rebels have never revealed themselves publicly or claimed responsibility for the unrest in the rubber-producing region bordering Malaysia.

(Reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat; Writing by Vithoon Amorn; Editing by Darren Schuettler and David Fox)