Rebel attack kills three policemen in Thai south

Three Thai policemen were killed and one was seriously injured in a bomb attack in the latest violence in a five-year separatist rebellion in the south of the country, police said on Thursday.

The 20 kg (44 lb) bomb was buried along a rural road in Nongjik in Pattani, one of three far-south provinces where more than 3,000 people have been killed since the violence erupted in 2004.

"One of those three was a deputy superintendent of Nongjik police station. They were killed while they were guarding teachers on the school bus," a police official said.

The rebels have never revealed themselves publicly or claimed responsibility for the violence, which has remained limited to the rubber-producing region abutting the Malaysian border.

It was a Muslim sultanate until annexed by predominantly Buddhist Thailand a century ago. The majority of the population is Muslim and Malay-speaking, with few links to the rest of Thailand.

In an incident earlier this month, two paramilitary rangers were shot dead and decapitated in the region.

BANGKOK, Feb 12 (Reuters)