Militants ambush Thai security forces in south

NARATHIWAT, Thailand (Reuters) - Suspected Muslim insurgents ambushed security forces in southern Thailand on Thursday night, setting off a roadside bomb and firing guns to kill five members of a patrol, an officer said.

On Friday, three soldiers were killed in a second attack by a similar roadside bomb blast, another army officer said, ratcheting up violence in a low-level insurgency that has been going on for about six years in predominantly Buddhist Thailand's Muslim-majority deep south, on the border with Malaysia.

The spike in attacks is a worry for the government of southeast Asia's second biggest economy, already beset with fierce rivalry between political blocs, which occasionally sparks violence.

More than 4,000 people have been killed in the rubber-rich provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, which were part of a Muslim sultanate that Thailand annexed a century ago.

The insurgents often set off crude bombs and ambush security forces, as happened in the first attack, in Narathiwat province.

"The group was on night patrol in a pick-up truck when they were ambushed," said Lieutenant Pairat Kiatjaroensiri, adding the attackers snatched four guns and fled. Three of the five victims were Muslim and two Buddhist.

In the second attack, on Friday, a bomb buried on a road in Yala province went off, killing three soldiers in a pick-up truck, said Lieutenant-Colonel Kumpon Ponpakdi.

As well as members of the security forces, the insurgents usually attack other people associated with the Thai state, including government officials and teachers.

The violence has not spread outside the region but that is a fear for the government.

The violence in the south comes weeks after nearly 100 people were killed in weeks of political protests in Bangkok in April and May.

Analysts say the political trouble centred in Bangkok has distracted the government from getting to grips with the south, which many residents say the state has neglected for generations.

A counter-insurgency operation involving tens of thousands of soldiers, police, paramilitary forces and security volunteers has failed to put an end to the near daily violence.

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