Pattani - Two delivery men taking 60 motorbikes into Thailand's troubled southern region were shot dead by suspected insurgents who then burned the bodies, said police Monday. The 10-wheel truck driven from Bangkok was ambushed in Saiburi district of Narathiwat province. The attackers doused the bodies of the two men, both aged 38, and the load of motorbikes in petrol in what police described as a symbolic act of death and destruction.
"They want to spread fear and despair among the whole population. They want businessmen to feel they cannot operate in this area - that is why they are so ruthless," Police Colonel Wallop Channonasa of Saiburi told dpa.
The authorities have claimed a significant reduction in terrorist attacks in the region this year, but Wallop said intelligence has been warning there may be another spike in violence.
"The insurgents are constantly trying to find new ways to terrorize and upset people," he added.
About 80 per cent of the region's 2 million people are Muslims. Of the 300,000 Thai Buddhists who lived in the region, some 70,000 have reportedly left their homes in recent years.
Analysts said the region's Muslim population, the majority of whom speak a Malay dialect and follow Malay customs, feels alienated from the predominantly Buddhist Thai state. That feeling is exploited by a determined insurgency that has grown more violent and ambitious in the last five years.
