BANGKOK, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Suspected Muslim militants beheaded a Buddhist farmer in southern Thailand on Friday, police said, the second decapitation since the Islamic holy month of Ramadan began and the 12th in 21 months of separatist unrest.
The torso of Song Sangpetch, 68, was found at a rubber plantation where he kept his cattle in Pattani, one of three southernmost provinces hit by violence which has claimed more than 900 lives since January last year.
The head was missing, but a note left beside the body said: "You kill innocent people, I will kill you."
"It is surely a case to stir fear and unrest," Police Lieutenant Colonel Narat Thepcharoen told Reuters by telephone from the scene.
Although the government has sent 30,000 soldiers and police to the region, where 80 percent of people are Muslim, ethnic Malays, the insurgency appears to be growing.
Booby traps, decoy attacks and ambushes of army and police convoys have become daily occurences in the densely wooded region, suggesting the anti-Bangkok guerrillas are becoming more sophisticated and inventive.
Also on Friday, a 43-year-old Bhuddist employee of the Sungai Kolok city government was shot and killed by a gunman riding pillion on a motorcycle while heading for work, police said.
Troops, police and civil servants are key targets of Muslim militant attacks, who fought a low-key separatist war in the jungle in the 1970s and 1980s.
Many of the assassinations have been carried out by a pair of militants on a motorcycle.
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