Pattani, Thailand - Suspected separatists decapitated a 60-year-old Thai-Muslim man in Thailand's violence-wracked province of Pattani, police said Saturday.

Madu Ramae, a rubber plantation labourer, was stabbed to death and then decapitated Friday night in the Yarang district of Pattani, about 750 kilometres south of Bangkok, police said.

His head was found 5 metres away from his body.

"Since the conflict started in 2004 there have been 39 decapitations in the region, with more Thai-Muslim victims than Thai-Buddhists," said Srisompop Phiromsri, a political scientist at Songkhla Nakarin University in Pattani.

"The decapitations are either performed as acts of revenge against informers or as a result of conflicts of business interests," said Srisompop.

Acts of violence in Thailand's majority Muslim deep South - that comprises Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala provinces - have claimed more than 2,700 lives over the past four years.

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)