Two Muslim civilians riding motorcycles were shot and killed and another died in a bombing in restive southern Thailand on Thursday, the latest violence in the insurgency-plagued region.
More than 3,700 people, both Muslims and Buddhists, have been killed in Thailand's three southernmost provinces - Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala - since an insurgency flared in January 2004. The provinces are the only Muslim-majority areas in the Buddhist-dominated country.
Assailants gunned down a man riding a motorcycle after morning prayers at a mosque in Yala province, said army spokesman Col. Parinya Chaidilok. The victim's 7-year-old son, who was also on the motorcycle, was hospitalized after being shot in the back.
In a separate attack in the same province Thursday, a Muslim civil servant was killed in a drive-by shooting as he rode a motorcycle, Parinya said. A woman also died when a small bomb exploded near a rubber plantation where she worked, he said.
