(Adds mosque attack in last three paras)

By Surapan Boonthanom

YALA, Thailand, March 14 (Reuters) - Suspected insurgents killed eight Buddhists and wounded two people in Thailand's rebellious Muslim south on Wednesday in an unusual attack on a civilian minibus, an army spokesman said. At least five militants sprayed the minibus with automatic rifles on highway in Yala, one of three provinces hit by a three-year separatist insurgency, as it tried to escape the ambush in a rubber plantation, Colonel Acra Tiproch said.

"They blocked the road with a tree trunk and sprayed the van with automatic rifles as the driver was making a U-turn to avoid the danger," Acra told Reuters by telephone.

The four men, two women, a boy and a girl were each hit by several bullets as the minibus headed for Hat Yai, the commercial capital of the south, from Betong on the Malaysian border.

A severely wounded Buddhist woman was taken straight into surgery and the Muslim driver, the only other person on the minibus, escaped with minor wounds, Acra said.

The attack took place on the anniversary of the founding of the separatist Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), or National Revolutionary Front, which the government had feared would be marked by an increase in violence.

Security forces were on full alert in Bangkok, where a wave of still unsolved bombs killed three people on New Year's Eve, but Thai army commanders said they had no reason to believe the capital would be a target.

They did, however, say they expected a spike in violence in the far south, an independent sultanate until annexed by overwhelmingly Buddhist Thailand a century ago.

"RED ZONE"

Security concerns were sufficiently high to affect the Thai stock market, where analysts cited them as a factor in the 0.68 percent fall of the main index <.SETI>.

Already this week, a Myanmar migrant worker has been beheaded, several schools -- often targeted as a symbol of the Bangkok government -- burned down and a bomb set off at a busy morning market in the far south.

Those were typical of the daily attacks in the region, where more than 2,000 people have been killed in the latest separatist insurgency which erupted in January 2004.

The attack on the minibus, however, was not typical of insurgents who never claim responsibility or set out their aims in public.

They usually strike against security forces or individuals suspected of dealing with the government in the largely Malay-speaking region.

Wednesday's attack, in an area classified as a "red zone" where support for the militants is strong and where security forces have been ambushed, may have been carried out by inexperienced insurgents, Acra said.

"The militants, probably newly-trained youths, picked the van as the target because those people couldn't fight back and they could avoid sustaining casualties," he said.

A bomb left at the scene was typical of militant methods, aimed at inflicting casualties on security forces arriving to investigate an attack.

This one, however, was not planted close enough to wound anyone when it exploded, Arca said.

Also unusual and also in Yala, were bombs thrown into a mosque and a nearby teashop after evening prayers which wounded at least 10 people.

Acra said they were probably an attempt to suggest Buddhist revenge.

"The village where the bomb attack happened doesn't support the militants and they want to put the blame on the Buddhists and the government," he said. (Additional reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat in Bangkok)

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