Teacher shot dead in insurgency-plagued Thai south

By Arun Saronchai

BANGKOK (AA) – A teacher was shot dead and her companion wounded by suspected insurgents in southern Thailand on Friday, according to officials.

Police investigator Naphaditr Themongkla told Anadolu Agency that two insurgents on motorcycles attacked a teacher and her teaching assistant in the majority Muslim province of Pattani.

"The teacher, a woman, died at the scene while her assistant was seriously wounded and sent to hospital," he said.

The security forces, as well as Buddhist monks and government teachers, are regularly targeted by insurgents in the country’s far South.

The southern insurgency is rooted in a century-old ethno-cultural conflict between Malay Muslims living in the region and the Thai central state where Buddhism is considered the de-facto national religion.

Armed insurgents groups were formed in the 1960s after the then-military dictatorship tried to interfere in Islamic schools, but the insurgency faded in the 1990s.

In 2004, a rejuvenated armed movement -- composed of numerous local cells of fighters loosely grouped around the National Revolutionary Front, or BRN -- emerged.

The confrontation is one of the deadliest low-intensity conflicts on the planet, with more than 7,000 people killed and over 11,000 injured since 2004.