NARATHIWAT, Thailand, Sept 18, 2007 (AFP) - Suspected separatists have shot dead five people in Thailand's troubled south, police said Tuesday, as the government warned that rebels were stepping up attacks against teachers.

A Buddhist man and a Muslim man were killed in Pattani province, police there said, while two Muslim men were shot dead in separate attacks in Narathiwat and Yala, all on Tuesday.

On Monday evening, suspected insurgents killed a Muslim woman in Yala, local police told AFP.

Three of the five people killed in the Muslim-majority region were heads of village administration bodies.

In Bangkok, government spokesman Yongyuth Mayalarp told a cabinet meeting that separatist rebels were increasingly targeting teachers and schools.

Since the beginning of the school year on May 6, nine teachers have been killed and six schools set on fire, he said.

"The attacks rose sharply compared to last year and attacks were more bold," Yongyuth told reporters after the cabinet briefing.

He said authorities were trying to devise a security plan aimed at keeping teachers safe, especially as they travelled to and from schools.

More than 2,500 people have been killed in the far south since the latest unrest erupted in January 2004. The Muslim region was annexed by mainly Buddhist Thailand a century ago, and separatist tensions have simmered since.

Separatist militants frequently attack schools in the region along the southern border with Malaysia because they are seen as symbols of Thailand's attempt to impose Buddhist Thai culture on the ethnic Malay region.

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