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RAE POH, Thailand (AP) - The tea shop is abandoned. Rubber plantations stand untended. Soldiers constantly patrol the one-lane road leading into this Muslim village.
Rae Poh was once designated a "green zone" village, one of more than 1,600 such islands of peace amid the violence that has torn Thailand's southern tip since a Muslim insurgency erupted four years ago. Then, on Jan. 14, insurgents ambushed an army patrol about a mile away, killing all eight soldiers and beheading one of them.
Now Rae Poh is a "red zone" — one of some 320 loosely designated by the authorities as insurgent hotbeds and under virtual military siege.
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