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NARATHIWAT, THAILAND - A MEMBER of a pro-government militia and a suspected rebel were killed on Saturday in Thailand's far south, police said, where a bloody separatist insurgency is raging.
A 45-year-old Muslim man who worked for a village defence force was shot dead in Narathiwat province on Saturday morning, police there said.
In nearby Yala province, meanwhile, an unidentified man suspected of being a militant was killed in a pre-dawn clash with government soldiers.
More than 3,000 people have been killed since separatist 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.
Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said on Friday that the government would extend emergency rule in the Muslim-majority south for three more months. -- AFP
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