Violence continues almost daily despite 40,000 troops and police in the region [AFP]

The shooting took place on Saturday morning in the Raman district of Yala province at a cafe popular with police and soldiers.

Police say the assailants drove up in a pickup truck and started shooting as customers ate breakfast.

Three people died at the scene, four others were injured.

Yala province is one of three mostly Muslim southern provinces that have been wracked by violence since a separatist movement flared up in 2004 after a lull of more than two decades.

Drive-by shootings and bombings occur almost daily and more than 3,000 people have been killed since 2004.

The government has made little progress in curbing the violence despite the presence of nearly 40,000 police and soldiers in the south.

More than 90 per cent of Thailand's 65 million people are Buddhists, and many of the country's Muslims have long complained that they are treated as second-class citizens.

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