NARATHIWAT, Thailand : A Chinese man was found shot dead in Thailand's Muslim-majority south on Sunday, police said, blaming separatist rebels for the rare killing of a foreigner in the insurgency-hit region.

Cai Wensheng, a 55-year-old carpet vendor, was found at a local teashop in Narathiwat province with two bullet wounds to the head.

Local police said Wensheng and two Chinese colleagues were in the area to sell carpets, but were fired upon by two suspected militants on a motorcycle who were posing as clients.

The two other men escaped without injury, police added.

More than 3,000 people have been killed since separatist unrest broke out in January 2004 in the south, which was an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until mainly Buddhist Thailand annexed it in 1902, provoking decades of tension.

Most of the dead are Muslims and Buddhist Thais, with foreigners rarely caught up in the bloodshed in the provinces near Malaysia.

The unrest has been variously blamed on ethnic Malay separatists, Islamic extremists, criminal gangs and cross-border trafficking.

- AFP /ls