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NARATHIWAT, Thailand: Gunmen have shot and killed four people, including an elderly school bus driver, in separate attacks across the violence-plagued Thai south, police said Wednesday.
A Muslim rubber tapper, 34, was gunned down during an ambush inside the plantation where he worked in Narathiwat early Wednesday, one of three southern provinces near the Malaysian border afflicted by a long-running insurgency.
Two other attacks on Muslims in different parts of the province on Tuesday, both drive-by shootings, killed a 28-year-old man returning from evening market and a 33-year-old woman who was travelling on a motorbike with her husband.
Also on Tuesday in neighbouring Pattani province, a 68-year-old Buddhist man, who drives a school bus and owns a local shop, was shot dead while on a morning bicycle ride.
More than 4,700 people have been killed since rebels launched an uprising in early 2004, according to the latest figures from Deep South Watch, which monitors the conflict.
The organisation says more than half of the victims are Muslims, many apparently targeted because they are seen as traitors for cooperating with the local authorities.
Rights groups say the militants are rebelling against a long history of perceived discrimination against ethnic Malay Muslims in the Deep South by governments in the Buddhist-majority nation.
However the militants keep a low profile and have not publicly stated their goals.
