Buddhist beheaded in Muslim south Thailand
Wed 29 Jun 2005
BANGKOK, June 29 (Reuters) - Suspected Islamic militants beheaded a Buddhist in Thailand's Muslim south on Wednesday, police said, the ninth decapitation in 18 months of separatist unrest.
The 57-year-old was among about 20 construction workers in a village in Narathiwat province when a group of militants appeared and fired in the air, a police officer quoted witnesses as saying.
The militants, speaking in the Malay dialect which most Muslims in the region use, told the group to run away, but the Thai-speaking Buddhist did not move because he didn't understand the warning, the officer told Reuters by telephone.
He was shot three times in the head, which was then decapitated and taken to a nearby village, the officer said.
More than 700 people have been killed in the unrest in the Muslim-majority southern provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani, scene of a low-key separatist insurgency in the 1970s and 1980s.
The government has imposed martial law on parts of the region since violence flared anew in January 2004, at the same time as offering an olive branch of lavish development aid.
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