15 dead in 2 attacks in Southern Thailand

The jihad continues but someone is fighting back. This is starting to sound a little like a tit for tat situation. It is very hard to tell if muslims are killing each other (again) or pissed off Buddhists are fighting back. In the end it doesn’t matter, I see no signs that anyone will get any relief.

5/21/2007 (AP)
PATTANI, Thailand- A roadside bomb killed 10 paramilitary troops Thursday in southern Thailand, while in a separate attack, gunmen fired into a mosque and killed five people, an official said, in some of the worst recent violence in the region.
The bomb went off as government-hired paramilitary rangers drove by, killing 10 of them, said Thai army spokesman Col. Akara Thiprote. Two rangers were slightly wounded.
“The rangers were coming back from their mission to negotiate with Muslim protesters in another district,” he said.
The bombing took place in Bannang Sata district, part of an area that has been under a military curfew following a mosque bombing and a grenade attack on a tea shop that killed 10 people and wounded more than 20 others on March 14.
Almost immediately after Thursday’s bombing, an unknown number of assailants opened fire on a group of Muslim villagers leaving a mosque after evening prayers in nearby Sabayoi district of Songkhla province, killing five, Akara said.
“The insurgents opened fire on the Muslim villagers and put the blame on the authorities,” Akara said.
Thailand is overwhelmingly Buddhist, but Muslims are a majority in the deep south, where they have long complained of discrimination.
Buddhists living and working in southern Thailand have been the targets of Muslim insurgents. However, Muslims—mostly working for the government—have increasingly fallen victim to the violence in recent months.Thai military authorities have blamed such attacks on Muslims bent on intensifying hatred against the government and to radicalize other Muslims and push them into joining the insurgency.
Some Muslims believe the security forces or even Buddhist vigilantes might have a hand in the killings.
Since a Muslim rebellion flared in the three southernmost provinces in early 2004, near-daily bombings, drive-by shootings and other attacks have killed more than 2,200 people.

Thailand Changing Approach to Muslim Militants

Finally, someone opens the can of whoop ass. I am a big believer in fighting fire with fire. To many muslims in to many places sit back and blame all the bad muslims for the violence. The claims of being intimidated into silence although common are simply bullshit. Passive support is still support. If there really are moderates in Thailand here is your chance, get off your asses and join the military crack down that is fixing to end the islamonazis rampage in southern Thailand. Be part of the problem or part of the solution. The time for talk appears to be over and now its time to pick a side. Pick your century muslims 21st or 7th?

By Thomas Fuller, New York Times News Service published on 5/27/2007
Bangkok, Thailand — Frustrated by their inability to pacify a Muslim insurgency and concerned about rising impatience toward their rule, Thailand’s generals have named a former commando and self-described assassin as their top security adviser.
The appointment this month of the adviser, Pallop Pinmanee, a retired general notorious for his harsh tactics but admired for his survival instincts, appears to be a signal from the military-backed government that its conciliatory approach toward Muslim insurgents in southern Thailand will change.
And recent statements from Pallop and other government leaders herald a repressive turn toward dealing with political dissent as well.
“The way to solve the problem in the south is to get the people on your side,” Pallop said in an interview this week. But if the violence continues, the military should carry out “search and destroy” missions against the insurgents, he said. “If we cannot make them surrender, then we have no choice — we have to destroy them.”

51-Year Old Woman Killed By Islamonazis

Am I the only one who is noticing that working on a rubber plantation in Thailand is dangerous?  It seems like every week another rubber tree worker is killed by Islamonazis in Thailand…

Two shot dead, bomb injures 11 in southern Thailand
The Associated Press
Published: May 20, 2007
PATTANI, Thailand: Suspected Muslim insurgents in southern Thailand fatally shot two Buddhist civilians and wounded a third Sunday, while a bomb wounded 11 persons including five policemen, police said.

The casualties were the latest apparent victims of an Islamic separatist insurgency in Thailand’s three southernmost provinces — the only provinces with Muslim majorities in Buddhist-dominated Thailand. More than 2,200 people have died as a result of the unrest since January 2004.

One of Sunday’s fatalities was a 22-year-old driver for a construction company in Pattani province, said police Col. Thawan Narawong. His attackers shot him at his work site then set fire to his body and the truck he had been driving, the police officer said.

In Yala province, a gunman on the back seat of a motorcycle shot a 51-year-old woman and her 17-year-old son as they were riding her motorcycle to a rubber plantation, police Lt. Col. Somporn Toharb said. The woman was pronounced dead at a hospital while the her son was seriously wounded, he said.

Police said they believed the attacks were part of an effort by insurgents to scare Buddhists into fleeing the region.

Buddhists Block Muslim Protesters in Thailand

You know that you’ve gone to far when you piss off 150 Buddhists!!!

Muslim rally sparks Buddhist counter-protest

POST REPORTERS

Yala _ A rally led by Muslim residents in Krong Pinang sub-district stirred up resentment among a Buddhist group which gathered in nearby Bannang Sata district in a counter-protest. More than 500 Muslim women and children protested on Yala-Betong road No. 410 in Krong Pinang sub-district for a second day yesterday.

They demanded the release of 24 Muslims, including village heads and Islamic teachers, who were called in for questioning at the Ingkhayuthboriharn military camp in Pattani province on April 29 on suspicion of supporting the insurgency. They also demanded the military withdraw from their areas.

Their rally upset about 150 Buddhists in Bannang Sata district who felt the protest was unreasonable. The Buddhists then blocked Yala-Betong road No. 410 at about 11am yesterday and demanded the Muslim demonstrators disband to stop causing public disorder.

Southern Thai Violence Takes New Turn

This is what muslims cry about the most — backlash. Why because it works, start killing them and they go dormant. My advice is to ask a few Serbs for advice on dealing with jihadi. I’m betting many will volunteer to help you out.

By RUNGRAWEE C. PINYORAT
Associated Press Writer

April 26, 2007, 2:09 PM EDT

BAN BALA, Thailand — Failed government efforts to quell the Islamic insurgency in southern Thailand have left the area’s Buddhists frustrated, armed and raring to fight back.

The violence has taken an ominous turn lately with a string of apparent tit-for-tat outrages. On March 14, hooded insurgents ambushed a van and killed eight Buddhists, including two teenage schoolgirls. That evening, two bombs outside a nearby mosque and at a teashop killed three Muslims and injuring about 20, and five days later, gunmen opened fire at a dormitory of an Islamic boarding school, killing three students.

It’s the first time Islamic institutions have been targeted since the insurgency broke out in 2004.

No one has claimed responsibility, and the government has sought to portray the attacks as Islamic provocations, not Buddhist acts of vengeance. But the end result is heightened distrust on both sides that many fear could turn into communal warfare.

“We are ready to declare war,” said Prasit Nuannin, the Buddhist chief of Ban Bala, a mountain community whose population of 2,000 is split about equally between Buddhists and Muslims.

Policemen and village militia armed with assault rifles and shotguns have stepped up their guard over the local Buddhist temple here, fearing insurgents will try to torch it.

Muslim vs Muslim Jihad in Southern Thailand Continues

We are more Muslim than you.
BS-You don’t know that.
Bang-Bang: See we told you! Allah u Ackbar!

8 April 2007 (AFP)
NARATHIWAT – Four Muslim men have been killed in shooting attacks by suspected Islamic militants in Thailand’s restive south, police said Friday.

Two Muslim men, aged 26 and 35, were gunned down in a drive-by shooting on their way to a mosque late Thursday in Narathiwat, one of the three insurgency-plagued provinces bordering Malaysia.

Two other men were killed in separate attacks in Narathiwat — one 52-year-old was gunned down in an ambush, while a 51-year-old was killed when militants opened fire on his home, police said.

More than 2,000 people have been killed in Thailand’s Muslim-majority south since an insurgency broke out in January 2004.

Thailand’s military-installed government has launched a raft of peace measures, only to see the attacks escalate in the past six months.

Although Buddhists in the region feel increasingly vulnerable, Muslims with links to the government are often targeted for attack.

Devout Muslims fire Grenades at Islamic centers

Time for the tired “they don’t speak for true Islam” speeches. Need a jihad? Play the victim card. No neighborhood support? Nade those Muslim backsliders. One ray of hope- a local cleric Nimu Makajae actually admitted Muslims committed these crimes. He knows the penalty for speaking out against Islam. It didn’t stop him from demanding the government of Thailand save them from other Muslims but it was still brave (almost).

Twenty injured in pre-dawn strikes in Yala; spate of arson attacks on schools
The Nation, April 6, 2007
Attackers fired grenades into a mosque and a packed Islamic missionary centre early yesterday, wounding at least 20 worshippers.
Hours earlier, four public schools were set ablaze late in an act of defiance after authorities imposed a strict curfew in two parts of Yala province.
Police said militants arrived in a sedan with an M79 grenade launcher before dawn and fired four rounds into the Dawa Centre in Yaha district, where more than 150 people were inside to conduct early morning prayers.
They suspected at least five insurgents were involved in the attack on the centre, which is a branch of the Tablighi Jamaat missionary movement.
Minutes later, a grenade was fired into the Al-Ismamiyah Mosque in Ban Asin village, about a kilometre away in Yaha district. No one was injured but one of the mosque’s pillars was damaged. The same group is believed to have been responsible.
Late on Wednesday two more public schools were set on fire, along with about 20 other minor attacks and disturbances in the Yaha and nearby Bannang Sata districts.
“The insurgents are able to move quickly on foot and disappear. Their attacks are also well coordinated,” Bannang Sata district chief Methee Kanchanaphuwa said. “The village defence volunteer scheme is not enough to provide the needed security.”
The two districts were put under an 8pm-4am curfew shortly after the brutal massacre of eight Buddhists in a commuter van last month in the Yaha area. The same day a group of armed men fired into a mosque in the same district, injuring seven people.
Army spokesman Col Akara Thiprot said yesterday’s pre-dawn attacks on the Dawa Centre and nearby mosque were undertaken by insurgents to intimidate fellow Muslims who cooperate with the state.
“The insurgents want to scare away Muslims who may want to help authorities in quelling the violence,” Akara said. “They want to cause strife between Muslims and Buddhists and make the two communities distrust each other.”
Several Muslim leaders in the region said they agreed with the authorities. “A significant portion of the local population think the attackers were government security officers. I think the authorities must move quick to explain what really happened,” said Nimu Makajae, a leading Islamic figure in the region.

A Battle of Will

More on the Jihad in Thailand
April 2007
By Edward Blair/Yala
While Thai officials in Yala court the hearts and minds of local Muslim villagers, separatist attacks threaten to spark widespread communal violence
The afternoon call to prayer drifted over the rail yards from the central mosque to the Yala Rama hotel, as groups of young women in hijabs browsed the shop fronts along Thanon Pipitpakdee.
On this hot afternoon, downtown Yala showed few signs of the deadly violence that has wracked the province—and the whole of the predominantly Muslim South—since the revival of a bitter separatist movement in 2004 that has left more than 2,000 dead.
But the soldiers of Thailand’s Fourth Army who patrol the streets in Humvees, pickup trucks or on foot—and the guarded determination of residents to carry out their daily tasks—testify to the fear and suspicion that grips the city.
The fear in Yala has mounted in recent weeks as daily attacks by suspected Muslim separatists have left the nation shocked by the increased level of coordination and brutality.
On March 14, a minivan in the Yaha District of Yala was forced from the road by gunmen who killed eight of the passengers—mostly women—by shooting them execution-style in the head.
In the wake of the shooting, which sparked protests as far north as Chiang Mai, Thai officials imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in two Yala districts in the hope of scaling down the violence.
Three days later, authorities arrested six youths in connection with the attack. News reports quoted officials as saying that some of the detainees had confessed to the attack, which was conducted by men dressed in green, army-like clothing. No further details were provided, including the names of the suspects or the charges against them.
The indiscriminate nature of the violence in Yala, and numerous reports of attacks conducted by men in what appear to be military uniforms, have left villagers and security forces increasingly suspicious of each other—and equally in the dark about the identity of the attackers.
According to a local security official, who refused to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press, the insurgents currently operating in Yala are loosely organized cells, and from the limited intelligence gathered in recent months, attackers receive their instructions informally and remotely.
They are thought to receive instructions from an intermediary to pick up a weapon at a specified location and then return it there after an attack. As a result, suspects in detention have provided few details about those planning and instigating the attacks.
“We don’t know exactly who the enemy is,” the security official admitted. “But we know their methods. We have to engage in counter-terrorism.”
One of the keys to successfully combating terrorism, the security official added, was earning the trust of local villagers so that they would cooperate with investigations by security forces and police.
“If we trust each other, then residents will give us intelligence from their village,” he said.
But many Muslim villagers say they have no faith in the soldiers, who they believe are responsible for much of the violence, including abductions of Muslims.

Muslim militants kill 9 people in southern Thailand

This article shows nine deaths other claim eight. This story is related to the one below.

Earthtimes.orq
14 March, 2007, DPA
Bangkok- Muslim militants fired on a van loaded with passengers Wednesday, killing nine people and critically injuring two others in southern Thailand, police in Yala province said. The shooting occurred at 8:20 a.m. (0120 GMT) on the highway between Betong and Hat Yai in Yaha district in Yala province, 760 kilometres south of Bangkok near the border with Malaysia.
Army spokesman Colonel Akara Thiprote condemned the attack and said the insurgents only attacked people who cannot protect themselves.
“The insurgents attack people who are defenceless and they choose any target. They attack anybody, it doesn’t matter if they are Buddhist or Muslim,” he told Deutsche Press-Agentur dpa.

Mosque bombed after 8 Thai Buddhists slain

I want to believe this was in retaliation but I have to agree with the Thai assessment that Muslim’s blew up the Mosque to give the appearance of retaliation. So far no one outside of Thailand is screaming “JIHAD” loud enough to get noticed. The daily carnage shows these so called insurgents as the aggressor. Muslims prefer the victim role; they have that act down to a science. Their attempts to cause a government overreaction have failed so they invented this incident to appear as both threatened and victims. We aren’t buyin it ackmed.
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — A bomb wounded eleven Muslims outside a mosque in southern Thailand on Wednesday, in possible retaliation for the execution-style killings of eight Buddhist commuters in the same area earlier in the day.
Col. Apirat Sangkhao, the police chief in Yala province’s Yaha district — where both attacks took place — described the bombing as “an attempt to pit Muslims against Buddhists.”
No one has taken responsibility for either attack.