Si Sa Ket residents burn effigies during a protest outside the Provincial Hall against the brutal killings of minibus passengers in Yala yesterday. The gun attack was blamed on insurgents. Similar rallies were held in other provinces.

Militants executed eight people and left another seriously injured in a brutal morning ambush on a civilian minibus in Yala province yesterday.

At around 8am the vehicle - carrying commuters from Yala's Betong district to Hat Yai in Songkhla - was forced to stop because of a tree lain across the road in Yaha district, and 10 militants immediately attacked from the adjacent forest.

"I tried to turn the bus around when I saw the tree blocking the road but it was too late because a group of armed men appeared and opened fire," said the driver Abdullarman Kadeh.

"I jumped out and could see the militants shooting the passengers in the head," said Ab-dullarman, who sustained a head injury. The militants found the driver and forced him to lie on the ground but when he prayed for Allah's protection, they realised he was a Muslim and spared his life, police said.

Eight passengers died immediately and another was critically injured and admitted to a hospital in Yala.

A roadside bomb delayed rangers stationed nearby in their efforts to reach the site, an official said.

The dead - all Buddhists - included a soldier and a teenager, police said.

Yaha police are searching for a Muslim passenger who left the van shortly before the attack, although the driver did not mention the man.

The Betong Tour Company, which owned the minibus, said it would postpone the operation until confidence in safety was restored.

Condemnation of the incident has rang out from across the Kingdom and people in Satun, Nakhon Pathom, Uttaradit, Phayao, Si Sa Ket and Roi Et gathered to express their anger at the incident.

The military said the bloodthirsty attack against a soft target suggested the militants were forced to resort to desperate measures because they had lost their support base.

"They are scaring people through brutality and trying to frighten their supporters into maintaining their backing," Army spokesman Akra Thiproj said.

Interior Minister Aree Wongsearaya said he did not understand why the militants targeted civilians.

"It is wrong to copy similar attacks in foreign countries. Those innocent people are not involved in the conflict," he said.

The Nation

Yala