"Why don't they meet us directly through the right channels, instead of just monitoring us. The sooner the better," Pulo's foreign affairs committee chief Kasturi Mahkota said yesterday.

Council for National Security chairman Sonthi Boonyaratglin earlier instructed the Foreign Ministry to keep a close watch on the movements of exiled separatists in Europe, particularly those in Sweden.

The Foreign Ministry said Thai embassies in Europe had collected information and reported to Bangkok consistently on the exiled separatists.

Kasturi said his movement had done nothing wrong and its members enjoyed freedom of movement under the laws of European countries. "The Thais should also bear in mind, in light of the European Convention on Human Rights, that we are here legally and have nothing to hide," he added.

The government is struggling to contain the insurgency in the South, which erupted at the beginning of 2004, and has no clear idea about the new groups responsible for the violence.

Pulo and other exiled groups have not claimed any responsibility for the ongoing violence.

There was more violence yesterday in the South. In Narathiwat's Tak Bai district, six soldiers were slightly injured by a roadside bomb attack while riding motorbikes on patrol. In neighbouring Yala province, two teenagers - Nurdeen Malanheng, 16, and Romae Tohtayong, 17 - were shot dead in a drive-by shooting attack.

Meanwhile, the Narathiwat provincial court issued 15 arrest warrants for suspects in a brutal bomb ambush, which killed seven Special Forces troops two weeks ago.

Of the suspects on the warrant list, one has already turned himself in to the police and one has died since the attack. Police believe the remaining 13 suspects are still in the deep South.

The suspects are thought to be members of the separatist Rundi Kumpulan Kecil group, said Rangae district police chief Lieutenant Somphong Tangtua.