Three men were shot dead as they left a mosque in Pattani on Wednesday night, and a woman was injured in a grenade attack at her home in Yala on Thursday morning.
The three villagers were killed when gunmen opened fire at them as they were leaving the mosque after prayers in Pattani's Panare district.
Pol Lt-Col Manit Panthong, chief of the Pattani forensic police, said 16 spent AK-47 cartridge shells were recovered from in front of the mosque at Ban Na Phrao in tambon Panare.
The attack occurred at about 9.40pm.
A pick-up truck parked near the mosque and two nearby houses were also hit by AK-47 bullets, he said.
Police are investigating, but initially blamed Muslim militants.
A woman was injured by a K75 grenade explosion at her house in Yala’s Raman district on Thursday morning, Pol Lt Col Sanchia Kessarin of Kotabaru police station said.
The bomb victim was identified as Dariyahasi Sama-air, 25. She was hit in her right arm by shrapnel and taken to hospital.
Witnesses told police than a man riding pillion on a motorcycle hurled the grenade into the house, No 31/1, in Ban Juerae of Raman district.
Police inspected the scene and found a big hole on the house’s roof and property inside the house was also damaged.
Police are investigating.
More than 5,000 people have been killed and over 8,400 hurt in the three southern border provinces and the four districts of Songkhla since violence erupted in January 2004, according to Deep South Watch -- an agency that monitors the conflict in the far South.
Last month, a total of 56 people were killed and 547 wounded in insurgency-related violence in the region.