YALA, Thailand (Reuters) - Suspected separatists shot dead two Buddhist teachers on Friday and burned their bodies in Thailand's rebellious Muslim south, police said, the latest attack in a three-year insurgency that has killed more than 1,800.

The teachers were ambushed in their pickup truck only 300 meters (yards) from the village school where they taught in the southern province of Yala, police said. Security forces are bracing for a new round of attacks on government buildings, officials and civilians to mark the third anniversary of the renewed insurgency on January 4, police said.

"We knew they were going to do it, but we didn't know the target," Police Colonel Pumipetch Pipatpetchpoom said of the attackers. "Our security checkpoints have blocked them from entering the city, so they had to do it in a village," he added.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the violence which has seen almost daily gun and bomb attacks in the three predominantly Muslim southern provinces bordering Malaysia.

Thailand's military-appointed government has embarked on a peace drive in the Malay-speaking region, an independent sultanate until the Buddhist-dominated Bangkok government annexed it a century ago. But the attacks have continued.

The Education Ministry said this week 110 schools had been hit by arson attacks and 71 teachers and school staff killed in attacks since January 2004.
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