Jihad against retired teachers and elderly couples. This [1] Associated Press , however, stays in passive voice as long as it can, before gingerly identifying the culprits as "suspected insurgents," who of course just happen to target Buddhists.

BANGKOK, Thailand: A retired teacher and an elderly couple were shot dead Saturday while four other civilians were wounded in a bomb explosion in Thailand's violent-ravaged south, police said.

Sawai Phrommani, a 62-year-old retired teacher, was killed in a drive-by shooting as he rode a motorcycle home in Pattani's Mayo district, said police Lt. Col. Narat Thepchalerm.

In Narathiwat, suspected insurgents posing as customers shot dead a Buddhist couple _Charin Ngaono, 70 and his 68-year-old wife Rabiep _in their grocery store in Rangae district, police said.

Four Buddhist civilians also were wounded in Yala province, when a roadside bomb exploded as their car passed over it, police said.