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Bomb in restive south Thailand kills 3 policemen, wounds 5 others; Muslim rebels suspected

AP - Thursday, May 1

PATTANI, Thailand - Suspected Muslim insurgents killed three policemen and wounded five other people in a bomb attack Wednesday in restive southern Thailand, police said.

The policemen were on a routine patrol in Pattani province's Yarang district when a bomb hidden on the road exploded as their vehicle passed, said police Lt. Col. Akkom Buathong.

The assailants detonated the bomb by remote control after luring the police onto the route by setting fire to a nearby telephone booth, Akkom said.

Three policemen were killed and three other officers were among the five people wounded, Akkom said.

Since a long-simmering Islamic separatist insurgency flared in January 2004, more than 3,000 people have been killed in predominantly Buddhist Thailand's Muslim-majority southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, and some parts of neighboring Songkhla.

The government has made little progress in curbing the violence despite the presence in the south of nearly 40,000 police and soldiers. Drive-by shootings and bombings occur almost daily.

More than 90 percent of Thailand's 65 million people are Buddhists, and many of the country's Muslims have long complained that they are treated as second-class citizens. The southern Thais are of same ethnicity as Malays across the nearby Malaysian border, sharing the same religion, culture, food and language.

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