YALA, Thailand, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Suspected Muslim militants beheaded a Buddhist man and shot dead two civilians in southern Thailand on Sunday as an uprising shows no signs of abating. The head of the 40-year-old farmer was found next to his body and that of his 35-year-old wife at the entrance of their rubber plantation in Yala province, police said. Both had been shot and a handwritten note next to the bodies said, "We shall kill all Thai Buddhists", they said. In the same province, a 74-year-old man was shot dead while riding his motorcycle, police said. Two teenagers, also on a motorcycle, had shot the man. On Saturday, suspected militants shot dead police Sergeant-Major Pak Petmalai, 47, as he headed for work at a station near his home. Militants in Thailand's Muslim-majority three southern provinces, a Muslim sultanate until Bangkok annexed the region a century ago, never claim responsibility for attacks, nor have they set out their aims. In the 1970s and 1980s, guerrillas fought a war for independence in the region, where most people speak a Malay dialect and feel few connections to overwhelmingly Buddhist Thailand. More than 1,900 people have been killed in three years of violence in the south and peace efforts by the country's new military rulers have had little impact in curbing the unrest.
