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Three paramilitary rangers and a housekeeper were killed in an ambush in Yala’s Muang district early Saturday morning, police said.
The killings took place a few hours after a clash in Pattani province in which one suspected militant was killed and another arrested.
Pol Col Narin Busaman, the chief of Muang Yala police station, said the attack in Yala took place on a local road in front of Tharn Nampueng school in tambon Sateng Nok of Muang district about 6am.
He said he and a team of police rushed to the scene and found firefighters trying to put out a blaze in a pickup truck.
Lying on the road near the burning vehicle were the dead bodies of three rangers of No 41 paramilitary ranger unit -- Somyos Waewpetch, Kampol Mangwong and Panurat Boonthanuwong -- and Mrs Porn Kaewmak, a housekeeper at the ranger camp.
Witnesses told police that the rangers and housekeeper were travelling in the pickup to a fresh market in Muang district when gunmen hiding in a roadside forest sprayed bullets at them with M16 assault rifles and 9mm handguns.
The four victims were shot several times in the heads and bodies and died inside the truck on the spot.
The attackers stole the M16 assault rifles of the rangers, then set fire to the pickup truck and fled.
Police believed that the attackers were members of the southern separatist movement in Ban Sarong of tambon Khao Toom in Pattani’s Yarang district, led by Abdul Roseh Jarong.
In the earlier incident, one militant was killed and another arrested in a clash with a joint military and police force in Pattani’s Nong Chik district on Friday night.
Pol Maj Gen Pichate Pitisatepan, the chief of Pattani police, said the clash took place about 8pm when police and soldiers raided a house inside a coconut plantation in Ban Bangtan of tambon Thakamcham, where militants were reported to have been hiding.
On seeing the security forces, two militants opened fire in a bid to break out.
The clash lasted 15 minutes and when police inspected the scene they found the body of Mayuri Manor, 32, still holding .357 calibre pistol in his right hand.
They also arrested another militant whose name was not given.
Mayuri was wanted under an arrest warrant for inciting violence in Songkhla’s Thepha district, according to police.
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