Two Buddhists set ablaze in Thai Muslim south

Pattani (Thailand), Apr 30: Suspected Muslim militants beheaded a Buddhist man, shot dead his nephew and set both bodies on fire in Thailand's rebellious far south, police and soldiers said today.

The 30-year man and his 14-year-old nephew were killed in a Muslim village in Pattani, one of the three southern most provinces hit by three years of separatist violence in which more than 2,100 people have been killed.

The head was found 5 km (3 miles) away at a government school where three bombs were planted at the entrance, police Lieutenant Colonel Yuthakan Plienpoe told Reuters.

''They wanted to trap us with these bombs,'' Yuthakan said by telephone. Mobile phone service was switched off in the area to prevent the bombs being set off by phone signals.

Despite 30,000 soldiers and paramilitary rangers in the region, gun or bomb attacks on anybody Muslim or Buddhist seen as working with the government take place daily in the Malay-speaking region.

The army has said it needs another 10,000 troops in the region, an independent sultanate until annexed by largely Buddhist Thailand a century ago, but the government said it would prefer to give villagers military training and guns.

Reuters>