Four shot dead in Thai south: police

Suspected separatist militants have shot dead four people including a soldier in attacks across insurgency-hit southern Thailand, police said on Thursday.

Suspected separatist militants have shot dead four people including a soldier in attacks across insurgency-hit southern Thailand, police said on Thursday.

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A 33-year-old man was killed in a drive-by shooting early on Thursday in Yala, one of three Muslim-majority provinces beset by separatist bloodshed.

The previous night in Pattani province, two truck drivers aged 24 and 41 were shot dead in a rebel ambush, local police said, while a 38-year-old army ranger was killed by gunfire elsewhere in the same province.

More than 3,600 people have been killed since unrest erupted five years ago in the deep south. Tensions have simmered since predominantly Buddhist Thailand annexed the mainly Malay sultanate in 1902.