Five police killed in Thailand's south SUSPECTED insurgents have killed five plain clothes officers then stole their weapons in an attack in Thailand's restive south, police say. Police Colonel Kowit Rattanachote says the militants followed a pickup truck carrying the undercover policemen and attacked them on Wednesday on a road in Thung Yangdaeng district in Pattani province. He says the police attempted to take cover after the insurgents started firing into their vehicle. The bodies of four policemen were found next to the vehicle and another was found inside. The officers belonged to a regional police squad that cracks down on oil smuggling. More than 5000 people have been killed in predominantly Buddhist Thailand's three Muslim-dominated southernmost provinces since an Islamic insurgency erupted in 2004.