Suspected insurgents killed ten civilians in a flurry of attacks in the insurgency-plagued southern Thailand, the army said Tuesday, the fifth anniversary of a bloody assault by security forces at a mosque. In the deadliest incident, at least six gunmen in a pickup truck stormed into a house in Yala province late Monday, opening fire on a Muslim family of five, army spokesman Col. Parinya Chaidilok said. Four people were killed, Associated Press reported. Parinya says two Muslim rubber plantation workers were later found dead in the compound of a nearby mosque. The incidents came ahead of the fifth anniversary of the April 28, 2004, assault on the Krue Se mosque by Thai security forces, in which 32 insurgents were killed. Other clashes the same day between Muslims and government forces resulted in the deaths of a total of 107 people at the hands of security forces, turning the mosque attack into a symbol of the heavy-handed tactics of Thai authorities. The killings fueled a nascent insurgency that has claimed more than 3,400 lives in Thailand's three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat and some parts of neighboring Songkhla.
