PATTANI, Thailand ? Muslim insurgents disguised as paramilitary rangers attacked troops protecting a school in southern Thailand on Wednesday, killing four soldiers and wounding two more, police said. A 6-year-old boy was shot in the stomach during the assault.
Police Lt. Gen. Satanfah Wamasing said 15 assailants walked up to the school just before the attack and began talking with soldiers assigned to guard teachers there. Shortly after, they opened fire at close range and fled with four of the soldiers' M-16 automatic rifles.
The bloodshed in Narathiwat province's Rue So district was the latest in a wave of violence to hit Thailand's Muslim-dominated southernmost provinces since an Islamist insurgency erupted in 2004.
Government soldiers are often designated to accompany teachers traveling to and from schools in region, as well as monks collecting alms.
Sunai Phasuk, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, said in a tweet that the New York-based rights group has warned "Thai authorities that the simultaneous use of school for military and education purposes will put civilians at risk."
But Sunai condemned the attack, saying: "Insurgents knew they could also harm students and teachers. Such brutality is sickening."
In a separate incident Wednesday in neighboring Pattani province, two motorcycle-bound gunmen shot dead a 48-year-old in a market in Nong Chik district, said police Lt. Gen. Chonnavi Chamaroek.
On Wednesday, Amnesty International condemned insurgents for repeatedly targeting civilians in the conflict, saying such attacks constituted war crimes.
Amnesty says noncombatants have accounted for two-thirds of the nearly 5,000 deaths reported during the insurgency over the last eight years, while close to 8,000 people had also been wounded.
Most of the violence has been confined to three southern provinces dominated by ethnic Malay Muslims who are a minority in mostly Buddhist Thailand. The area used to be an Islamic sultanate until it was annexed by Thailand in the early 20th century.
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