Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont will visit Malaysia in August for talks with Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi on ways to end the insurgency in the deep South, Defence Minister General Boonrawd Somtas said yesterday.

Surayud will meet his Malaysian counterpart in Penang, he said.

Top on the agenda will be the boosting of bilateral cooperation to suppress the insurgency in Thailand's three southernmost provinces.

"The Malaysian side has said many times to authorities and to the prime minister that it is willing to help end the southern violence," Boonrawd said.

Surayud and Abdullah have met twice on the issue already. Malaysian foreign ministry officials will visit Bangkok before the end of the month to discuss details of the prime ministers' meeting with their Thai counterparts. Boonrawd said he just returned from a visit to Malaysia last week, during which both sides sought ways to strengthen cooperation and patrolling along the border to end the insurgency.

Malaysia has also been affected by the violence in the southern provinces and wants to see peace and prosperity restored to the region, he said.

Kuala Lumpur reiterated that it was ready to help if Bangkok needed a mediator to talk to the insurgents.

Meanwhile, Thai security forces rounded up about 100 suspects during a three-day sweep of Yala's Bannang Sata district, Army spokesman Colonel Akara Thiprote said yesterday. The suspects will be questioned and released if found to be innocent.

In the continuing violence, three teenagers aged 14-15 were killed in a bomb attack on a tea shop in Yala's Bannang Sata district on Friday night. Several people were injured, most of them aged 15-16.

A 16-year-old girl was shot dead earlier in the day in Yala's Than To district. Suwanna Butrsungnern, from Chaiyaphum, was gunned down as she was about to enter her house.

Late on Friday militants set fire to five schools and a government office in Songkhla's Saba Yoi district.

Police said that the district's tambon administrative organisation office was burned to the ground, and a pickup truck parked nearby also set on fire.

Security guard Kasaman Kalemanan, 34, said seven men with M16 rifles surrounded the office and told him to leave before firing into the sky.

Kasaman said he ran away and the men then set fire to the building.

Also, a 38-year-old man, Supakkanit Chantarat, was shot dead while riding a motorcycle along the Boethong-Yabi road in Pattani's Nong Chik district at about 10.20am yesterday.