Three killed in raid in Thai south

YALA (Thailand), 22 March — Two policemen and a suspected rebel were killed on Friday during a house raid in a village in Thailand's Muslim south, where nearly 3,000 people have died in four years of separatist unrest, police said. The two policemen, a Muslim and a Buddhist, were shot dead during a raid on the home of a suspected guerilla in Yala, one of the four southernmost provinces roiled by the violence. Fifty soldiers and police then stormed the one-storey house and killed a 25-year-old Muslim man, police said. The raid followed clashes on Wednesday between security forces and insurgents suspected of killing a 70-year-old Buddhist shopkeeper. Two Muslim men, one of whom was believed to be a leading member of an insurgent group and with a 500,000 baht (16,000 US dollars) bounty on his head, died in that operation, police said