2 wounded in attacks in southern Thailand

Pattani: Suspected Muslim militants critically wounded a 9-year-old boy in a drive-by shooting on Saturday, a day after three soldiers were shot dead in restive southern Thailand.

An Islamic separatist insurgency in Thailand's three southernmost provinces - Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat - has led to the deaths of more than 3,300 people since early 2004. They are the only predominantly Muslim provinces in the country, which is 90 per cent Buddhist.

A Muslim man believed to be a police informant was also shot and wounded on Saturday in Pattani, said Thai military spokesman Colonel Parinya Chaidilok.

The 9-year-old Muslim boy was severely wounded by gunfire as he sat in a pickup truck waiting for his uncle who is a policeman in Yala, said police Colonel Poompetch Pipatpetchpoom.

Assailants also burned down two public schools overnight in Pattani. Hundreds of schools - deemed by some Muslims as places where the government indoctrinates children with un-Islamic values - have been torched since 2004.

On Friday, three soldiers were shot dead and one wounded while patrolling a road on motorcycles in Narathiwat province.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks.