Four kill in deep South

The same evening also saw two Muslim men and a woman killed when gunmen sprayed their house with gunfire as they were conducting evening prayers.

In Pattani, two police officers were critically injured when a roadside bomb went off in Tambon Tanyong Dalor in Narathiwat's province, police said.

The two officers were among six security details for public school teachers in the restive region where more than 3,300 have been died due to daily violence since January 2004.

The two were identified as Pol PFC Laemthong Boochaphan, 35, and Pol Pvt Pathompong Pipatrachai, 33. Both suffered several shrapnel wounds through out their faces and bodies.

Government spokesman Wichianchot Sukchotrat told reporters that the Cabinet has instructed various ministries, including the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre to study what lessons could be learnt from the way Indonesia tackled separatist unrest in its Aceh province.

The cabinet on Tuesday ordered the interior ministry and the southern administrative body "to study the Aceh peace model in order to use information to solve our own southern unrest problem," Wichianchot said.

Aceh proindependence rebels signed a peace pact with the Indonesian government in Helsinki in 2005, giving up their fight for independence in return for broadranging autonomy.

The peace deal ended almost three decades of violence that had claimed more than 15,000 lives.

 Separatist violence in Thailand's Malayspeaking south erupted offandon since the Muslimmajority region comes under Thailand's direct rule just over 100 years ago.

 This latest wave of violence erupted in late 2001 but the government would not acknowledge that a new generation of insurgents has surfaced in the region until the January 4, 2004 raid on an army battalion in Narathiwat. Militants made off with more than 300 pieces of weapons after killing four soldiers. Scores who were on guard duties and residing in the garrison were released unharmed.