Thai south shootings kill eight: police

YALA, March 16, 2011 (AFP) - Eight people have been killed over a 24-hour period in a series of shootings across Thailand's restive deep south, police said Wednesday.

The deaths come a week after the government said violence was escalating in the insurgency-plagued region, following a string of gun and bomb attacks.

A Buddhist teacher, aged 52, was shot dead in Songkhla province early on Tuesday morning while working his second job on a rubber plantation, police said.

Another Buddhist plantation worker was shot dead, and his wife injured, on their way to a work in the same province, also on Tuesday morning.

Later seven gunmen opened fire at a village teashop in Pattani province, killing three Muslim men aged between 42 and 60, followed by a drive-by shooting in nearby Yala province that killed a 69-year-old Muslim man.

Police said a group of armed men opened fire on another teashop in Narathiwat province on Tuesday night, killing two Buddhist men and injuring another three.

Shadowy Islamic militants have waged an insurgency in Thailand's southernmost region bordering Malaysia for more than seven years, leaving more than 4,400 people dead, including both Muslims and Buddhists.

Critics accuse the government of failing to address the grievances of Thailand's Malay Muslim minority, including alleged abuses by the military and a perceived lack of respect for their ethnic identity, language and religion.

-- (c) Copyright AFP 2011-03-16

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