Thai teacher, 2 police officers killed in south
YALA, Thailand (AFP) - - A Buddhist female teacher has been shot dead and two policemen have been killed by a bomb in Thailand’s south as suspected Muslim separatists step up an anti-government insurgency, police have said.
Gunmen opened fire on the 56-year-old elementary school teacher in troubled Yala province as she rode to work on her motorcycle, in the latest attack against the education establishment in the region, they said.
Shortly afterwards, a bomb hidden in a motorcycle exploded outside a police station in neighbouring Pattani province, killing one policeman immediately, while a second died from his injuries later in hospital, police said.
Two other policemen were wounded in the explosion, they said.
The attacks come amid a recent surge in violence in the Muslim-majority region bordering Malaysia, where more than 3,700 people have been killed during a bitter five-year insurgency.
The female victim was the 117th teacher shot dead since the unrest began in the volatile provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani in January 2004, said Boonsom Thongsriplai, head of a southern teachers’ confederation.
Schools and teachers are frequent targets of attacks in the south because militants see the education system as an effort by Bangkok to impose Buddhist Thai culture on the mainly ethnic Malay region.
The insurgents also target other civilians — Buddhist and Muslim alike — as well as security forces.
Thailand’s government is struggling to curb the recent spike in violence, which included a bloody attack on a mosque in which gunmen shot dead 11 people during evening prayers last week.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva admitted he was concerned by the recent worsening of the unrest but said he was confident the right government policy was in place.
“I am worried over the ongoing violence,” Abhisit told reporters.
“It will take time to restore peace in the south and I don’t know how long… The government is going in the right direction and will not change its policy or resort to violent means,” he said.
On Sunday Abhisit raised the possibility of making the south a special administrative zone as a political solution to the unrest but he ruled out granting any form of autonomy.
The southern region was an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until Thailand annexed it in 1902, provoking decades of tension.
