Two police killed, violence intensifies in Thai south

A powerful bomb killed two police officers and wounded another in Thailand's deep south on Tuesday, police said, the latest deaths in an upsurge of violence in the area blamed on Muslim separatists.

The bomb was inside a fire extinguisher hidden under the road in Tak Bai district and was triggered when a pickup truck carrying police officers went over it.

Ethnic Malay Muslims represent the majority of the population in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, the southernmost provinces of predominantly Buddhist Thailand. More than 4,500 people have been killed and nearly 9,000 wounded in violence since 2004.

There has been a sharp rise in the number and scale of attacks in the past month, with Muslim villagers, soldiers, police and Buddhist monks among the victims of roadside blasts, a bombing during a soccer match and a drive-by shooting at a packed tea shop.

On May 20, four insurgents were killed in a shootout with security forces in Yala and 12 people were wounded in a truck bombing in Narathiwat.