Narathiwat, 26 Feb. (AKI) - Suspected Islamist rebels have decapitated three people in Thailand's Muslim dominated south in the past week, police said on Thursday.

Three people were killed late on Wednesday in the southern Thai province of Narathiwat , and one of the victims was decapitated, police said.

Forty-seven people, often soldiers, have been beheaded in Thailand's three Muslim-majority provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani since 2004. An estimated 3,300 people have been killed in the conflict.

Experts say the region's Islamic schools or 'pondok' are fomenting the Islamist rebellion.

Demands by Thai Muslims include the introduction of Islamic law and making ethnic Pattani Malay (Yawi) a working language in the region. They also want an improvement in the local economy and education system.

The conflict began in January 2004 and reflects the long-standing alienation of the area's inhabitants who are predominantly Malay in ethnicity and language and practising Muslims.

During the 1970s and 1980s secular ethnic Malay groups such as The United Front for the Independence of Pattani (Bersatu) and the Pattani United Liberation Organization (PULO) fought for a separate state in the region.