PATTANI, March 11 (TNA) – Three telephone company workers were shot dead and their bodies burned by their assailants, while a vendor was gunned down elsewhere in two separate attacks by suspected insurgents in the violence-plagued province of Pattani.

Four TT&T company workers were attacked as they traveled by company pickup truck to work in the Pattani provincial seat.

Shot by a gunman on a motorcycle, the victims pickup truck was set afire in the shooting attack. Three workers died at the scene while the other managed to get out of the burning vehicle.

In another incident, a 61-year-old vendor was gunned down while he pulled his cart to sell household items along a road in Yarang district.

He was shot twice in the head and torso by a gunman on motorcycle and died at the scene.

The insurgency flared up in January 2004, and in the six years since has claimed over 4,000 lives in the three southern border provinces and four districts in nearby provinces of Songkhla. (TNA)