Bomb kills 5, wounds 3 in Thai Muslim south

BANGKOK, June 8 (Reuters) A bomb killed five policemen and wounded three in Thailand's rebellious Muslim south today, police said.

The bomb went off as the eight officers were travelling to pick up teachers from a school in Narathiwat, one of the three southernmost provinces where more than 1,300 people have been killed in a two-year separatist insurgency.

''They were travelling in two trucks to provide security for teachers who were leaving school for home,'' a police officer told Reuters by telephone.

More than 100 government schools in the Muslim far south were closed for several weeks last month after villagers abducted and beat two women Buddhist teachers, leaving one in a coma.

The government of overwhelmingly Buddhist Thailand has tried many ways to end the violence and win the hearts and minds of the 1.8 million people in the far south, an independent Muslim Sultanate until annexed by Bangkok a century ago.

It has tried everything from brute force to promises of development aid, but militant attacks on security forces, officials and ordinary people continue almost daily in the region, where most people speak a Malay dialect.

Police had yet to identify the type of bomb used today, but many of those which have been set off were detonated by mobile phone.

REUTERS KD BST1511