Sitting in a darkened room, the former insurgent says he has lost count of how many bombs he has helped make, but it is well over 100.

Key points: The National Revolutionary Front, or BRN, carries out bombings, shootings, on a near-daily basis

Teachers, government officials and monks are targeted by the insurgents as symbols of the Thai state

Peace talks currently underway, but stuck at a preliminary stage

"My role as a logistics officer was to find food, ammunition and bomb supplies," he told the ABC, in an exclusive interview in Thailand's troubled Narathiwat province.

The 28-year-old says he joined the secretive insurgent group when he was a teenager and rose through the ranks before quitting this year.

"I was proud to be with the BRN," he said, on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals for speaking without authority.

BRN is the Malay language acronym for the National Revolutionary Front, considered the most active of the Muslim separatist insurgent groups in southern Thailand.

It is thought to have about 3,000 trained fighters, and carries out bombings and shootings on an almost daily basis, although it rarely claims responsibility.

Two incidents on Thursday show the BRN's main tactics.

Suspected insurgents shot dead a female petrol station worker in Pattani province, and when security forces responded, two bombs were detonated, causing further injuries.

In a separate attack in neighbouring Narathiwat province, 10 insurgents fired on a group of volunteer militia, killing one man and stealing three assault rifles.

Violence like this — as well as killings by the security forces — has claimed more than 6,500 lives since the conflict intensified in 2004.

Thai security forces look for Muslim insurgents near the Malaysian border. ( ABC News: Liam Cochrane )

Soft targets and torture

The unrest is usually contained to what is known as the "deep south" of Thailand, but a recent string of coordinated bomb and arson attacks targeted the "upper south", including places popular with Australians, such as Phuket and Hua Hin.

Four Thais died and several foreigners were among the injured in the latest attack, which is being seen by some analysts as an expansion of insurgent operations.

The former insurgent who spoke to the ABC said he was not involved in the August attack but said it had all the hall marks of the BRN.

"If innocent people are injured, well, I don't want that but I had no choice," he said.

"It was our job to plant the bombs in certain areas to resist the Government."

While most of Thailand is Buddhist, the southernmost provinces bordering Malaysia are 80 per cent Malay-speaking Muslims — the result of Britain redrawing the map a century ago.

Thai soldiers watch over a Buddhist monk as he accepts food donations. ( ABC News: Liam Cochrane )

Teachers, government officials and monks are targeted by the insurgents as symbols of the Thai state, but most of the victims are civilians.

The army is accused of torturing suspects, including recent accounts of waterboarding.

"They would put a towel on my face and tie it behind my head, then pure water on the towel until it went in my nose and I would choke," said a man identifying himself only as Rutkee, according to an Amnesty International report released this week.

He told Amnesty that after being detained by soldiers last year, he was suffocated with plastic bags, beaten, threatened with guns and grenades, deprived of sleep and exposed to extreme cold.

The Thai Government denies all allegations of torture and shut down the official launch of Amnesty's report on Wednesday.

Peace talks falter

There are peace talks underway but they remain stuck at a preliminary, unofficial stage.

"A pernicious stalemate prevails, with both state and militants preferring hostilities to compromise," said a report released last week by the International Crisis Group.

The ICG said part of the problem was that the main fighting group boycotted the talks and the umbrella group of Malaysia-based insurgent leaders set up for the talks (MARA Patani) does not really speak for those carrying out attacks.

That factional divide was confirmed by the former insurgent who spoke to the ABC.

"We used to be like neighbours, walking in the same direction, but now we are separate," he said.

Meanwhile Thailand's military Government, which seized power in a 2014 coup, is accused of not being serious about engaging with the separatists.

"[The junta] professes to support dialogue to end the insurgency but avoids commitment, and the Prime Minister has questioned the talks," the ICG report said.

"The bombings in the upper south should encourage the Government to seek talks for a comprehensive settlement."

After the most recent peace talks on September 2, a car bomb was found and disarmed on the Thai-Malaysian border, widely seen as a sign of opposition to the meeting in Kuala Lumpur.

Days later, a motorcycle bomb placed outside a kindergarten killed a four-year-old girl, her father and a bystander.

Signs of the conflict are everywhere in the Thailand's deep south, from military checkpoints to concrete barriers on the footpath to minimise damage from car bombs.

A Government program brings monks to the region for short stints to bolster the Buddhist presence, but on their daily alms rounds they are shadowed by black-clad commandos with M-16s.

The area remains under-developed and locals do their best to live normal lives amidst the bloodshed and fear.

At an Islamic school, a group of schoolgirls in brightly coloured headscarves sat under a tree doing their homework.

Schoolgirl Surufah Baka pleads for an end to the violence that claimed her cousin. ( ABC News: Liam Cochrane )

Surufah Baka, 12, told the ABC her cousin was shot dead, although she doesn't know why.

"I beg for an end to the shooting, hurting people, killing people — we lost so many people already," she said.