BANGKOK: A village headman was shot dead yesterday morning following a night of arson attacks in which 36 buildings, mostly government installations, were torched by suspected Muslim separatist militants in southern Thailand, police and army officials said.
The headman, Nairodin Mana, 49, died instantly when two men pulled up next to him on a motorcycle and the man in the back fired a pistol at him at point-blank range, in the Takbai district of Narathiwat province, south of here.