By Nopporn Wong-Anan

BANGKOK, March 16 (Reuters) - The Thai military may expand a curfew to more districts in the rebellious Muslim south after suspected militants killed eight Buddhists in an attack on a civilian minibus, an army spokesman said on Friday.

"We may have to widen the curfew if the violence worsens in other areas in the region," Colonel Acra Tiproch said by telephone.

The army also issued pictures of 36 people suspected of involvement in a series of bombings across the region last month at the Lunar New Year, Acra said.

A military crackdown would be popular among Thailand's Buddhist majority, even though the government installed after a bloodless coup in September says it is pursuing a policy of reconciliation in the southern provinces, where more than 2,000 people have been killed in a three-year separatist insurgency.

But Muslim religious leaders said the curfew, imposed on two districts along with broader security measures across the region on Thursday, would only deepen the problem.

"Villagers just don't understand what a curfew is and why it is important," said Abdullahmee Cheseh, head of the Islamic Council in Yala, the rubber-growing province where the minibus attack took place.

"What they know is their routine will be disrupted. They can't go out and tap rubber while the price is very good. This will worsen the Muslim villagers' perception of the soldiers and police," Abdullahmee said.

The curfew imposed in the Yala districts of Bannangsta and Yaha, where gunmen killed the minibus passengers and two Muslims were killed in an attack on a tea shop on Wednesday, forces people to stay indoors from 8 p.m to 4 a.m. (1300-2100 GMT).

The army also ordered everyone in Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani -- the three far southern provinces where the bulk of the separatist violence has occurred -- to report overnight guests to the authorities.

And it said anyone caught wearing clothes similar to army or police uniforms would face up to 10 years in jail.

FURY AMONG BUDDHISTS

The minibus attack infuriated Buddhists, a minority in the far south, where Muslims who speak a Malay dialect have long complained about being treated as second-class citizens.

"Reconciliation can be done only with human beings, but such a brutal attack was not done by human beings. We need to use bullets to deal with them," a Buddhist woman student in nearby Songkhla said.

Pongsak Yingchoncharoen, the Buddhist mayor of the city of Yala, said the government of Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont was dysfunctional.

"People in the three southern provinces are like a football which different agencies of the central government are kicking around," he said.

"Lack of unity on the national level means security officials at the local level are clueless about where they are going. They have switched off their engine, not just staying in neutral gear like those civil servants in Bangkok," he said.

Surayud repeated on Friday to reporters that providing justice was key to his policy of restoring peace in the relatively poor region, which was an independent sultanate until annexed by Thailand a century ago and subject to sporadic rebellions ever since.

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