From AP, with thanks to Nicolei:
An unidentified gunman fatally shot a police officer Monday in Thailand's restive south, the latest in a string of deadly attacks in the country's Muslim-dominated provinces this year, a police spokesman said.Border police Sgt. Chalaem Pohpan was riding a motorcycle in Pattani province's Mayoh district at around 10:30 a.m. (0330 GMT) when a gunman, riding on the back of another motorcycle, shot and killed him, said police Maj. Narat Thepcharoen.
Further details about the incident were not immediately available.
Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat provinces have recently suffered a series of violent attacks, including the torching of 21 schools and a raid on an army arsenal on Jan. 4 in which four soldiers were killed.
At least 45 people, including Buddhist monks, hospital workers and teachers, have been killed and dozens more injured in hit-and-run attacks in southern Thailand since the start of the year.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks but government officials have blamed Muslim separatists with possible links to regional and international terror networks.
Last week police arrested nine Muslims accused of taking part in the Jan. 4 attacks, and charged them with treason and other crimes.
The three southernmost provinces that border Malaysia are the only Muslim-dominated areas in this mostly Buddhist country.
An Islamic separatist movement in the region was put down in the late 1980s, but violence resurfaced in 2001.
It should be emphasized that Muslim invaders destroyed Buddhism in India, and that Islam is the common enemy of all other faiths and of those who profess a lack of faith.
As Hugh says, the Muslims operating under Mahmud of Ghazni, circa 1200 AD, entered India and mercilessly killed those guilty of "shirk" (polytheism). Orthodox Buddhism is not polytheistic, but understanding this requires a level of subtlety I wouldn't expect from a pack of murderous desert raiders.
Famous Buddhist/Hindu universities, including Nalanda, were destroyed along with their libraries, which contained writings pertaining to elementary theories of gravity and other radically advanced (for the time) scientific discoveries.
Apologist-friendly historical sources generally speak of Nalanda's destruction, but rarely mention the reason. The existence of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Kashmir conflict, can all be traced back to the Ghaznavid hordes.