YALA: A five-year-old girl was killed and 23 people were wounded in a grenade attack by suspected militants in Thailand's troubled south, police said Wednesday.

Two men on a motorbike hurled the grenade at an army truck near Yala central mosque as people gathered for an evening market, but missed the target, killing the girl and leaving two of the injured in critical condition.

More than 4,100 people have died during a six-year anti-government insurgency across the Muslim-majority southern provinces, led by a shadowy mix of separatist militants who never publicly state their goals.The region was an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until it was annexed in 1902 by mainly Buddhist Thailand and tensions have simmered there ever since, flaring up into the current insurgency in January 2004.