Headless Bodies Retrieved From Lake

[stumonster]

Headless bodies retrieved from lake

From correspondents in Bangkok

October 27, 2005

POLICE in southern Thailand retrieved the headless bodies of two men from a lake today, but said their murders were unrelated to an ongoing Islamic insurgency that has been wreaking havoc in an area nearby.

The bodies of the two 35-year-old men floated to the surface of a lake in Songkhla province two days after they were seen being taken away by unidentified armed men, said police Lieutenant Colonel Chanjaroon Jinaphong.

He said the men had been involved in a street brawl late on Tuesday before they were taken away.

"The victims were killed and beheaded by their enemies in a personal conflict, this case has no linkage to the ongoing southern violence," Mr Chanjaroon said, adding that an investigation was continuing.

More than 1100 people have died since January last year in Thailand's three southernmost, Muslim-dominated provinces as a result of violence related to an Islamic separatist insurgency.

The deaths have included 13 Buddhists who were beheaded by suspected insurgents.

Songkhla, 950 kilometres south of Bangkok, is adjacent to the three restive provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, and has seen the violence spill over into several of its districts.

Overnight, five villagers and two militants were killed in southern Thailand when insurgents launched about 50 raids on remote villages in the restive region.

The Thai army said most of the attacks targeted members of civilian guards created by the government to provide emergency security against militants.

"The attacks came at around 7pm to 8pm while all the men were praying at mosques. They left shotguns with their families at home," Colonel Acra Tiprote of the southern Army command said.

"We are hunting for the suspects with lots of help from villagers, both Buddhists and Muslims."

At least 73 government-issue weapons were stolen, while three militants were captured alive, the army said.

The attacks across the three troubled southernmost provinces came a day after the first anniversary of a bloody demonstration in which 78 Muslim protesters died in army custody.

The government in largely Buddhist Thailand has flooded the region with 30,000 troops and police and imposed martial law, although the measures have made no dent in the campaign of daily shootings, bombings and arson attacks.

The far south, where 80 per cent of people are Muslim, ethnic Malay and non-Thai speaking, was an independent Muslim sultanate until formally annexed by Bangkok a century ago.

The region has a long history of anti-Thai feeling.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/commo...55E1702,00.html