Violence surges as Thai PM visits Muslim south

Military-installed premier Surayud Chulanont made a surprise trip to southern Thailand late Friday to visit victims of a bombing last week who are still in hospital.

But just an hour before he arrived, militants ambushed a Buddhist family returning to their home, killing the parents and their four-year-old daughter in Yala province, police said.

The day after his visit, a Muslim army ranger was killed in a drive-by shooting while he was off-duty in nearby Pattani province, police said.

A 74-year-old Buddhist man was also shot at point blank range while he was resting at his rubber plantation in Narathiwat province, police said.

The killings were the latest in a surge of violence in recent weeks, despite a raft of new measures aimed at ending the nearly three-year conflict that has left more than 1,500 dead.

Surayud's government last week announced that on Wednesday it would re-open a key regional mediation body, which was credited with easing previous conflicts in the region but which was dismantled by ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

"What will be expanded from the beginning is a great role for participation by the people," the defence minister, General Boonrawd Somtas said in announcing its re-opening.

He also said the military would end controversial emergency rule in the region by January. But since the entire country has been under martial law since the coup last month, that move would only have practical effects if martial law were lifted.

The military toppled Thaksin's government in a bloodless coup on September 19, bringing down a leader who was widely despised in the mainly Muslim provinces because of his hardline tactics.

The takeover brought a glimmer of hope for a breakthrough in the conflict, and the junta has quickly moved to undo many of Thaksin's policies that were blamed for exacerbating the conflict.