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Man suspected of helping Thai military beheaded

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-02-22 18:35

BANGKOK -- A village official was beheaded Sunday and his wife shot dead by suspected insurgents as violence continued to rise in Thailand's restive south, police said.

Police officers inspect the bodies of two rubber tappers at a plantation in southern Thailand's Yala province February 22, 2009. [Agencies]

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Attackers opened fire on Kompetch Janyalert and Yenjai Janyalert as they rode their motorcycle in Yala province early Sunday, police said. Both were killed by gunfire and Kompetch was later beheaded.

A bomb planted near his headless body later exploded, injuring one police officer, police Lt. Surawit Daokrajai said.

Kompetch was a deputy village head, and police believe he was killed because he supported the military in its long-running battle against Islamic militants.

An Islamic separatist insurgency in Thailand's three southernmost provinces, Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, has led to the deaths of more than 3,300 people since early 2004. More than 30 people, both Buddhist and Muslim, have been beheaded since the violence began.

Sunday's attack is the latest sign that violence,  which had waned in recent months, is on the rise again.

On Friday, suspected Muslim insurgents ambushed a military convoy and beheaded two soldiers. On February 2, two paramilitary troops were killed, including one who was beheaded.

"From the political point of view, the army has been receiving significantly more cooperation from local people and that drives the militants to adapt more brutal retaliation," said Col. Parinya Chaidilok, an army spokesman. "They want to make it more violent so that the locals will be afraid to cooperate, to give us information about them and their hiding places."

The attacks, which include drive-by shootings and bombings, are believed intended to frighten Buddhist residents into leaving the only predominantly Muslim areas of Thailand, which is 90 percent Buddhist.

A massive counterinsurgency effort has recently slowed the pace of attacks but has shown little sign of ending the violence.