SUSPECTED separatist insurgents stormed a security checkpoint in Thailand’s Muslim-majority south and killed at least 15 people, including a police officer and many village defense volunteers, security officials said yesterday.

It was the worst single attack in years in a region where a Muslim separatist insurgency has killed thousands.

The attackers, in the province of Yala, also used explosives and scattered nails on roads to delay pursuers late Tuesday night.

“This is likely the work of the insurgents,” Colonel Pramote Prom-in, a regional security spokesman, said. “This is one of the biggest attacks in recent times.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, however, as is common with such attacks.

A decade-old separatist insurgency in predominantly Buddhist Thailand’s largely ethnic Malay-Muslim provinces of Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat has killed nearly 7,000 people since 2004, says Deep South Watch, a group that monitors the violence. (SD-Agencies)