Two killed in Thailand as Ramadan starts

Two civilians have been killed and four wounded in bomb and shooting attacks in southern Thailand, a military spokesman says.

A 25-year-old male security guard was shot dead by gunmen in Pattani province on Thursday morning and a 39-year-old man was killed later in a roadside bomb attack in neighbouring Yala, which also left one person with shrapnel injuries. 

A car bomb ripped through a shopping street early on Friday in the small town of Sungai Kolok, in the southernmost province of Narathiwat which borders Malaysia, wounding three people and destroying several shops.

"Three people were wounded but none is serious," Colonel Pramote Prom-in, army spokesman for the volatile region, told AFP.

The explosives had been packed inside a vehicle parked on the street and triggered as people gathered at a morning market, he added.

Authorities had warned that militants were likely to attempt a large-scale attack ahead of the Muslim fast month of Ramadan.

A shadowy insurgency, without clearly stated aims, has continued in Thailand's three southernmost provinces - Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala - since 2004.

Daily bomb or gun attacks have targeted both soldiers and civilians, Buddhists and Muslims, claiming more than 5000 lives in eight years.

- AAP