BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) – Three Muslim schoolchildren were killed and seven injured in an attack by suspected insurgents at an Islamic school in restive southern Thailand, police said Sunday.

The attack occurred late Saturday evening at the Bamrungsart Pohnor school, a Muslim boarding school in Songkhla province, said police Colonel Thammasak Wasaksiri.

Attackers hurled explosives onto the school grounds and opened fire with assault rifles into the sleeping quarters of the school, Thammasak said.

He said police believe Muslim insurgents staged the attack and hoped to convince local residents that authorities were behind it – a ploy to win villagers over to the insurgents’ cause.

Hundreds of Muslim villagers staged a protest Sunday morning, saying they didn’t believe that Muslims had staged the attack.

“The villagers are accusing paratroopers of attacking the school,” Thammasak said.

Drive-by shootings and bombings occur almost daily in Thailand’s three Muslim-majority provinces – Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani, and increasingly in the neighboring province of Songkhla.

Though Buddhist teachers have been targeted in the past, children have largely been spared.

The victims of Saturday’s violence were identified as a 12-year-old and two 14-year-olds.

Injured students, ranging in age from 13 to 17, were being treated for gun wounds and other injuries, Thammasak said.

More than 75 students were in the school’s dormitory at the time of the attack