Pattani, Thailand - Suspected Muslim militants decapitated a village administrator Tuesday in Thailand's troubled deep South, police said.

Four men on motorcycles, believed to be separatist insurgents, chased Athaphon Konlom, 45, while he was driving his pickup on a back road in Sadawa village in Yarang district, 760 kilometres south of Bangkok, firing on the former police officer with automatic weapons, Police Colonel Poonsak Pasertmek said.

After Athaphon crashed into a wall, the assailants shot and decapitated him, taking his head with them, Poonsak said.

"This was a well-planned attack, designed to create fear among the people in the area," he said.

It was believed to be the 40th beheading in Thailand's deep South since January 2004.

Acts of political violence in Thailand's majority-Muslim Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala provinces, which border Malaysia, have claimed more than 2,700 lives over the past four years.

The three provinces 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 Muslim, making the region an anomaly in predominantly Buddhist Thailand.

A separatist struggle has simmered in the area for decades but took a more violent turn 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)