Thailand sends 1,100 new policemen to Muslim south

YALA, Thailand, May 2 (Reuters) Thailand has reinforced its weary security force in the rebellious Muslim south with more than 1,000 new policemen to guard schools which open for a new term later in May, the southern police chief said today.

''These officers have been well trained to protect schools and teachers,'' Police Lieutenant General Jettanakorn Napeetapat told reporters as the last of the 1,116 police arrived by train in the Malay-speaking region.

More than 2,100 people have been killed in three years of separatist insurgency in the far south, where schools and teachers have been targeted as symbols of the government in faraway Bangkok.

The government says more than 160 schools have been set ablaze during the insurgency in the former sultanate annexed by largely Buddhist Thailand a century ago.

The army has asked for 10,000 more troops in the far south, reinforcing the 30,000 paramilitary troops and soldiers already there, but Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont has said it would take a while before security agencies made a decision.

REUTERS ABM VV1655