BANGKOK, April 13 (Reuters) - The Thai army has detained 11 Muslim men suspected of involvement in an attack on a Buddhist woman who was shot and burned alive in the strife-torn Muslim-majority far south, a spokesman said on Friday.

"At this early stage, some of them have confessed to doing this but some haven't," army spokesman Colonel Acra Tiproch told Reuters by telephone as Buddhists protested against one of the most brutal of many killings in the region for a third day.

Watcharaporn Boonmak, 26, was ambushed by gunmen as she rode her motorbike through a Muslim village in Yala, one of the three southern provinces roiled by a three-year separatist insurgency in which more than 2,000 people have been killed.

Acra said The 11 men were among 27 being sought by a combined force of police and soldiers in the region, a former sultanate annexed by overwhelmingly Buddhist Thailand a century ago.

The insurgents never claim responsibility and have never made their aims public.

AlertNet news is provided by