Christians Under Attack

Local police said three men and six women, including two girls aged 14 and 15, were shot in the head at point-blank range after armed rebels forced their minibus off the road.

The driver, a Muslim man, and a seriously injured Buddhist passenger were the only survivors from the daylight attack in Yala, one of three southern provinces where about 2,000 people have been killed in three years of separatist unrest.

"Militants opened fire on a minibus full of passengers who commute between Betong (district) and Hat Yai, and the bus veered off the road," Colonel Acar Tiproach, a Thai army spokesman, told AFP.

Eight of the passengers, who police said included traders, villagers, teachers, students and one solider, died immediately. One more died on the way to hospital.

A police officer at the scene said separatist rebels had placed logs on the road to force the minibus to a stop.

"When the bus slowed down, they opened fire. The bus veered off the road, and then the militants got on and shot the passengers in the head at point blank range," the investigating officer said.

Colonel Apirak Sungkhao, a Yala police commander, said militants detonated a small roadside bomb about 500 metres from the scene of the attack to prevent the army or police from approaching quickly, because they would have to do a security sweep first.

He said they also put spikes on the road to stop vehicles approaching.

No one was injured in the blast, he added.

When police and media arrived on the scene, they found the minibus crashed in a ditch, with the victims slumped in the bloodstained seats where they were killed, execution-style.

The gruesome multiple killing followed a similar ambush Tuesday, when a pickup truck carrying people to a funeral in Yala was attacked by militants who shot dead a 61-year-old Buddhist.

Violence has recently escalated in the region bordering Malaysia despite a raft of peace-building measures proposed by Thailand's military-installed government.

A string of coordinated bomb blasts across Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani provinces last month killed nine and injured 44. Attacks have also become more gruesome, with two people beheaded by suspected militants this month.

Analysts and military sources said Wednesday's massacre might have been in retribution for an army raid on a militant training base on March 2 that killed at least five separatist rebels in Narathiwat.

"I think they want to revenge some of their group who were attacked by rangers, so they kill some people," said Perayot Rahimmula, an academic and analyst based in Pattani.

He said he did not think the attack aimed to inflame sectarian tension between Buddhists and Muslims, but added the escalation of violence had prompted some Buddhists to consider fleeing their homes in the south.

Thailand is a predominantly Buddhist country. The three southern Muslim provinces were an autonomous ethnic Malay sultanate until Thailand annexed them a century ago, and outbreaks of separatist violence have erupted ever since.

The region has recently been on high alert, with the authorities warning of specific attacks from March 13-15 to mark the anniversary of the founding in 1963 of separatist group Barisan Revolusi Nasional Melayu Pattani.

POSTED BY /http://news.yahoo.com