Buddhist man beheaded in Thai south
Afp, Yala
A Buddhist man was beheaded after he and his wife were gunned down early yesterday in Thailand's Muslim-majority south, police said.The Buddhist couple, both 38, were shot repeatedly as they were riding a motorcycle home after finishing their work tapping trees on a rubber plantation in Yala, one of three provinces wracked by a three-year insurgency. The militants apparently dragged the man's body off the motorcycle and then cut off his head, which they dropped on the roadside some 20 meters (yards) away, police added. The militants, who never claim responsibility for their near-daily attacks, left three notes written in Thai near the bodies, identifying themselves as the "Pattani fighters" and saying: "You arrested our men, so we will kill yours." Pattani is another of the provinces hit by the separatist insurgency, and was also the name of the autonomous Malay sultanate that controlled this region until it was annexed by Buddhist Thailand more than a century ago.
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Thai teachers and students attend a school function as guns of security officials lie on a table in Thailand's restive southern Narathiwat province. PHOTO: AFP |
