Insurgents behead a man in Narathiwat
Narathiwat - Police found the bullet-riddled bodies of three men, one of whom was beheaded, near Kupoh village. They were believed to have been murdered by insurgents in the restive region.
Police identified the victims as Surachai Nalumalinee, 36, Anusorn Naaem, 13. An unidentified man was found on Wednesday morning close by. Surachai's head was found 10 metres from his body.Police believe the three victims were killed on Tuesday. They were residents of the commercial centre of Hat Yai, from where they had driven their truck to deliver consumer goods to the villagers. The beheading was the 10th this year, and one of 25 since violence in Thailand's southernmost provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat flared anew in early 2004. Meanwhile, a roadside bomb was detonated just outside a public school in Pattani's Tung Yang Daeng district, killing one soldier and injuring another. A separate roadside bomb in Pattani's Yarang district killed one and injured six Special Forces soldiers who were patrolling the area in their pickup truck. The powerful bomb ripped through the vehicle. At least four teachers have been slain this week in Thailand's three southernmost provinces, Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala. Dozens of schools in Narathiwat have closed their doors this week to protest the slayings and demanded protection from the government. On Monday two female teachers were shot dead in front of their students by assailants in the library of Sakoh primary school, Narathiwat. Teachers and schools have been prime targets of the violence plaguing the deep South since January 2004, when the region's longsimmering insurgency took a militant turn for the worse - and more than 2,300 people have been killed The three provinces comprised an independent Islamic sultanate known as Pattani for hundreds of years before being conquered by Bangkok in 1786. The border provinces came under direct rule of the Thai bureaucracy in 1902. The Nation
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