One soldier, two villagers and two militants were shot dead in a battle at a military outpost in restive southern province of Narathiwat's Rueso district, Thai News Agency reported on Wednesday.

Duty officer at Rueso police station Lt Sithanon Samlee said on Wednesday that on Tuesday night Rueso police received a reported of a gunfight at an outpost inside a multipurpose building of Rueso municipality in Rueso district, he said.

Police rushed to the scene and only to find out the militants had placed logs and burning tyres on the local road to obstruct them from reaching the scene, 1.5 kilometers away.

After ten minutes of clearing off the road, police reached the spot and found more than 100 spent empty cartridges from M16 and AK47 assault rifles scattered in the area.

Nearby villagers told police that the injured people and dead bodies were already taken to Rueso hospital.

Witnesses told police that soldiers were relaxing when about 30 men in black arrived at the outpost in two pickup trucks and on four motorcycles and opened fired at them. The soldiers and village defence volunteers fired back.

Two attackers were believed shot dead but their colleagues took their bodies away when they fled on the pickup trucks and left behind four motorcycles.

Those injured included three soldiers and two civilians. A joint military and police force was hunting for the militants. Police were investigating.

More than 5,000 people have been killed and over 8,400 hurt in the three southernmost provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, since violence erupted in January 2004, according to Deep South Watch -- an agency that monitors the conflict in the southernmost provinces.