An imam and 11 worshippers were killed when gunmen stormed a mosque during evening prayers in southern Thailand.
Another 11 people were seriously injured in the attack in Cho-ai-rong, one of the worst incidents in a five-year insurgency in the province of Narathiwat.
About 100 people were praying in the mosque at Ai Payae village yesterday evening when the gunmen attacked, spraying worshippers with bullets.
Witnesses told the Bangkok Post newspaper that five or six gunmen broke into the prayer hall from undergrowth behind the mosque and began firing indiscriminately, then fled.
Ten of the worshippers died instantly and two died later in hospital, after the attack that came amid a flare-up in the insurgency that has left 3,700 people dead since 2004.
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It happened only hours after Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Thai Prime Minister, and his Malaysian counterpart, Najib Razak, agreed to step up co-operation over the region’s troubles.
Suthep Thaugsuban, the Deputy Prime Minister, who is in charge of national security, would not speculate on the reason for the attack or who was behind it, although the Government has blamed shadowy Muslim separatist insurgents for most of the violence in the south.
Villagers blamed the security forces for the massacre, saying that the insurgents would not attack a mosque. In April 2004, 32 people, some suspected rebels, were killed by security forces in a raid on a mosque in the south.
Tensions have simmered in the south since the Buddhist-majority Thailand annexed the former ethnic Malay sultanate in 1902. The present rebellion began on January 4, 2004 when militants raided an army base, also in Cho-ai-rong, killing four soldiers and stealing weapons.