YALA, Thailand (AFP) –
Suspected separatist insurgents in Thailand's troubled Muslim-majority south shot dead four civilians while a remote-controlled bomb wounded five other people, police said Tuesday.

Militants gunned down a Buddhist man and his wife in an ambush early Tuesday while they were travelling by motorbike to tap rubber in restive Pattani province, police said.

As police investigated the shooting, rebels detonated a bomb hidden beneath the bodies of the couple, wounding three policemen and two villagers, they added.

Also in Pattani a gunman posing as a wedding guest shot dead a Muslim man at a marriage ceremony on Monday evening, police said.

Earlier Monday, a painter was killed in a drive-by shooting as he rode a motorbike to a local teashop in the same province.

A bomb hidden in a motorcycle was detonated outside a karaoke shop, again in Pattani, on Monday night but there were no injuries.

The southern provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala and parts of Songkhla made up an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until it was annexed by predominantly Buddhist Thailand in 1902, sparking decades of tension.

More than 3,700 people have died since an insurgency erupted five years ago.

Islamic rebels have targeted both Buddhists and Muslims, with victims ranging from security forces to civilians such as teachers and workers on rubber plantations.