Bangkok  - An insurgent, wanted for the murders of two kidnapped marines in 2004, died in a gunfight with soldiers and police in Narathiwat province, officials said Saturday.

Alinsan Nikaji, 25, who had a bounty of 1 million baht (30,000 dollars) on his head, was killed when 100 members of the security forices surrounded the village of Tanyong Limo on Friday, where in 2005 two passing marines were beaten to death by radicals after being caught by villagers.

Thai authorities have maintained that Alinsan and two accomplices, was physically active in the murder. Two other men, both with half a million baht bounties on their heads and believed to be the other murderers, were caught in the operation, the Bangkok Post reported.

The 2005 crisis caused great consternation in much of Thailand after hundreds of veiled women and children blocked rescue troops from entering the village for 18 hours.

Thai forces did not want to force their way through for fear of bad publicity. Only after the marines held in a mosque, had been beaten to death and the insurgents had withdrawn, did the women give way.

Elsewhere on Friday, two Muslim construction workers, 24 and 29, were shot dead in Songkhla province. In Yala, a 50-year-old woman was killed in a drive-by shooting. In Narathiwat, a 48-year-old male was shot by intruders into his home late Friday and a rubber tapper, 23, was shot in the same area early Saturday.

A long-simmering Muslim separatist struggle took off in the 1950s, fuelled by government efforts to suppress the local culture and religion in the region.

The conflict, after a two-decade-long lull, took a turn for the worse when Muslim militants raided an army arms depot and stole more than 300 weapons in January 2004. Nearly 3,000 people have died in the violence (the figures are disputed) over the past four and a half years. (dpa)