BANGKOK, Thailand - Suspected Muslim militants ambushed a commuter van carrying a group of Buddhists and killed eight of them execution-style in Thailand's restive south Wednesday, military and hospital officials said.

The attack prompted officials to step up security in the south, where a Muslim insurgency has claimed more than 2,000 lives since 2004.

Militants attacked the van as it slowed into a curve in the road, which they had blocked with a large tree trunk, said police Lt. Kitti Mankhong, a duty officer in the Yaha district of Yala province, where the attack occurred.

The attackers first threw a bomb at the van, then fired at the driver with automatic rifles, and finally opened the vehicle's side door, shooting each of the passengers, he said.

The driver, who was hospitalized with a gunshot wound to the face, survived the morning attack, as did a female passenger. She was hospitalized in critical condition.

"Everyone was shot in the head at close range, execution-style," Kitti said.

Two of the dead were 16-year-old girls.

please try to stay safe

evenstar3 said:

Thanks. No more trains or buses for me. I'm gonna stick to flying everywhere with Air Asia. No trouble there, but then that's because even suicide bombers consider it too dangerous.

why are the vans being attacked, for money?

The driver recounted that he heard the insurgents say, "Kill them all," in the local dialect of the Malay language that is widely spoken among southern Muslims instead of Thai, according to Yaha district chief Suppanat Sirunthawinet. He also said that one of the Buddhist women pleaded in vain for the life of her daughter.

He quoted the driver saying that the gunmen did not execute him after they heard him praying for his life in the Malay dialect, which indicated he was likely to be Muslim.

Relations between the Muslim and Buddhist communities in the far south have become strained, but there has been little sign of Buddhist civilians seeking to retaliate for the violence that is often directed at civilians.

Later Wednesday, a bomb exploded outside a mosque in the same district, wounding 11 Muslims, police said. An army spokesman, Col. Akara Thiprot, blamed insurgents.

"They want to trick people into believing that this is retaliation," he said, referring to the earlier killings of the Buddhists. "They want to cause divisiveness between people of different religions."