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.