LONDON (AlertNet) - In the past 10 months, Muslim separatists in Thailand's three southernmost provinces have stepped up attacks on police, government buildings and other symbols of the mainly Buddhist Thai state.

The Thai government has responded with force, declaring martial law in the region.

Altogether some 450 people have been killed since January 2004.

The separatist movement is decades old, but violence has gotten worse this year.

Economic and social grievances have rekindled frustration in the south, which is poorer than the rest of the country, and the separatists claim the central government discriminates against Muslims.

Muslims are a minority in Thailand, and make up just 10 percent of the country's overall population of 63 million.

They live mainly in the southern provinces, which were annexed by the Thai government in 1902.

Many of Thailand’s Muslims speak Malay and have more in common with the citizens of neighbouring Malaysia than with Buddhist Thais.

The government initially blamed bandits and mafia-style crime bosses for the violence but was forced to acknowledge that separatists were responsible.

There is also concern that international extremists are involved.

ANGER AND REPRISALS

Since April, suicide raids, arson attacks, and shootings of Thai officials, traffic policemen and Buddhist monks have become almost a daily occurrence.

In October, tensions increased after 79 southern protestors -- all Muslim -- died in army custody.

The protestors, who had been arrested after a riot outside a police station, were crowded into trucks, where they died of suffocation on their way to detention at an army camp.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra admitted that the army was at fault, but Muslim leaders and analysts fear that no matter what the government says the protesters' deaths will encourage more Muslims to join the insurgency.

There is even evidence that the separatists will take their revenge in Bangkok.

The United Nations has put its Thailand staff on alert following threats by separatists to stage attacks in the capital.