PATTANI — Suspected Islamic separatists shot dead three men on Monday morning in the latest bout of violence in Thailand's restive south, local police said.
Gunmen killed a Muslim villager in his house in Pattani province, while two Buddhist truck drivers were shot dead as they travelled to Narathiwat province with a goods delivery, the police told AFP.
The militants then torched both men's bodies and their truck, they added.
More than 4,000 people -- both Buddhists and Muslims -- have been killed in Thailand's southernmost provinces bordering Malaysia since a bloody insurgency erupted nearly six years ago.
Tensions have simmered in the mainly Muslim region -- formerly an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate -- since it was annexed in 1902 by Buddhist-majority Thailand.
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