Gunmen kill 15 in southern Thailand's worst attack in years

Suspected separatist insurgents stormed a security checkpoint inThailand'sMuslim-majority south andkilled at least15people, including a police officer and many village defence volunteers, security officials said on Wednesday.

It was theworstsingleattackinyearsin a region where a Muslim separatist insurgency haskilled thousands.

Theattackers, in the province of Yala, also used explosives and scattered nails on roads to delay pursuers late on Tuesday night.

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"This is likely the work of the insurgents," Colonel Pramote Prom-in, a regional security spokesman, told Reuters.

"This is one of the biggestattacksin recent times."

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, however, as is common with suchattacks.

A decades-old separatist insurgency in predominantly BuddhistThailand'slargely ethnic Malay-Muslim provinces of Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat haskilled nearly 7,000 people since 2004, says Deep South Watch, a group that monitors the violence.

The population of the provinces, which belonged to an independent Malay Muslim sultanate before Thailand annexed them in 1909, is 80 per cent Muslim, while the rest of the country is overwhelmingly Buddhist.

Some rebel groups in the south have said they are fighting to establish an independent state.

Authorities arrested several suspects from the region in August over a series of small bombs detonated in Bangkok, the capital, although they have not directly blamed any insurgent group.

The main insurgency group, the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), denied responsibility for the Bangkok bombings, which wounded four people.

In August, the group told Reuters it had held a secret preliminary meeting with the government, but any step towards a peace process appeared to wither after the deputy prime minister rejected a key demand for the release of prisoners.