A 29-year-old woman was gunned down while driving a motorcycle in Yala, one of three Muslim-majority provinces bordering Malaysia, and two middle-aged men were also killed in another shooting while driving a pick-up truck.

Police said two soldiers were also wounded in a roadside bomb attack in the province where another villager was hurt in a separate bomb blast. Authorities declined to give further details.

More than 2,900 people have been killed since the unrest broke out in January 2004 in the south, which was an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until mainly Buddhist Thailand annexed it in 1902, provoking decades of tension. -- AFP