Scores killed as Thai muslims launch attacks

Thai police shot and killed more than 70 machete-wielding militants who launched simultaneous pre-dawn raids on security outposts today, in the heaviest fighting yet in the troubled Muslim-dominated south, officials said.

Thai police shot and killed more than 70 machete-wielding militants who launched simultaneous pre-dawn raids on security outposts today, in the heaviest fighting yet in the troubled Muslim-dominated south, officials said.

The youths, suspected to be Islamic militants, attacked more than 15 police bases, village defence volunteer outposts and district offices in a bid to rob weapons in Yala, Pattani and Songkhla provinces, said Yala Governor Boonyasit Suwanarat.

At least three policemen and one soldier were also killed.

It was the bloodiest day in the south where almost daily attacks by gunmen have left nearly 150 people dead this year. The government has blamed Islamic separatists seeking to carve a homeland in the Muslim-majority south of this predominantly Buddhist country.

"In Yala alone the insurgents attacked six targets and at least 45 of them were killed. We lost two police officers and seven were injured," Boonyasit told a news conference.

"The fighting is still ongoing but judging from reports we received from Pattani also, I think at least 70 people, mostly insurgents have been killed."

Television news reports showed the bodies of insurgents lying in pools of blood, some of them with machetes clasped in their hands. Gunfire could be heard in the background as armoured personnel carriers drove down the streets of Yala and commandos ran through the woods.

Boonyasit said the security forces had received tips that the insurgents were about to make massive raids to steal guns.

"Maybe the insurgents underestimated the preparedness of security forces. They used machetes to rob guns and when we fought back they suffered big losses," Boonyasit said.

In Pattani, police surrounded the Kruesei Mosque where more than 10 youths were holed up.

Another wave of insurgents attacked a police station in Yala province's Krongpinang district at around 9am local time (3am UK time), police Major General Proong Boonpadung told reporters.

"The fighting is ongoing at two points, at the Kruesei mosque where the insurgents are holed up, and in Krongpinang," he said.

The fighting was continuing more than three hours after the first clashes started at 5am local time (11pm UK time yesterday), he said.

Defence Minister General Chettha Thanajaro told reporters he believed the insurgents had lost at least one third of their militia in the attacks.

He said the militants probably chose this morning for "the massive operation because they learned that the army will deploy more troops to the area to protect schools and teachers".

He said: "This is the strategy, a suicide operation of insurgents who have been brainwashed by a mastermind."

Muslims have long complained of discrimination in jobs and education in Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat - Thailand's only Muslim majority provinces.

They also say their culture and language are being subjugated by the Buddhist Thais, and cite as an example the state schools, which teach in Thai language. Muslims in the south speak Yawi, a dialect of Malay, spoken in the neighbouring Malaysia.

The alienation caused by the central government's policies has been the source of a decades old separatist struggle, which had subsided after an amnesty in the late 1980s before exploding this year into a frenzy of violence with a January 4 raid on an army arsenal and the torching of 21 schools. Four soldiers were killed in the arsenal attack.