Pattani, Thailand - Three people were killed and five wounded Saturday when insurgents in a pick-up truck fired into a tea shop in Yala, the centre of the Islamic insurgency in Thailand's deep south.

The militants leapt from the truck and fired at the early morning tea drinkers with automatic weapons, said witnesses.

The owner of the shop, a member of the government's village militia, fired back, forcing the militants to withdraw.

The motive may have been revenge for the death in custody in March of a local religious leader, Yapa Koseng, who was suspected of militant sympathies, a local police chief said.

"Our crackdown against insurgents in the region this year has been a success. Perhaps they are angry over that. Perhaps they are angry over the death of the imam (Yapa Koseng). We are investigating," said police Lt-Col Sawat Thongsai, the senior officer in Ramen district where the attack occurred.

The militants may have targeted the tea shop because its owner is a member of the village militia at a time when the insurgents are trying to force locals to distance themselves from the central government infrastructure, Sawat said.

Some 3,000 people are thought to have been killed in the escalating conflict over the past four years, most of the victims being Muslims who make up a large majority in the southern three provinces of Yala, Pattani and Naratiwat where the conflict is focused.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said last week that a judicial inquiry into the slaying and alleged torture by authorities of the imam is being blocked by army stonewalling despite "strong" evidence of brutality.

The army claims that sweep operations undertaken over the past year have reduced insurgent attacks by half but violence has flared up again in recent weeks, partly, said Human Rights Watch, in response to brutalities by the Thai security forces.

The three provinces bordering Malaysia comprised the independent Islamic sultanate of Pattani more than 200 years ago before it fell under Bangkok's rule. More than 80 per cent of the three provinces' 2 million people are Muslims, making the region an anomaly in predominantly Buddhist Thailand.
A separatist struggle has simmered in the area for decades but took a turn for the worse in January 2004 when Muslim militants attacked an army depot and stole 300 weapons, prompting a crackdown that further inflamed the local population against the government. (dpa)