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August 13, 2006

Thailand: Policeman Shot, Villagers Bombed In Muslim South

The latest news from Thailand's troubled south, where militant Islamists have been mounting an insurgency since January 4, 2004, is that two villagers in Narathiwat province have been killed. They were caught up in a bomb attack which was carefully and callously planned. The Nation and DNA India report that earlier today in a village in Rangae district, a man had been shot dead. A later account states that 12 security officials came to the scene to investigate, and a small crowd of villagers had been present.

As the investigators arrived, a bomb, hidden inside a motorcycle, went off and killed one of the villagers instantly. Eleven other people were injured, one so seriously that he died in hospital. The attack, according to local police, had been to deliberately lure security officials to the scene to become victims.

Apparently six of those who were injured were investigators, and five were villagers. Three of those caught up in the attack, soldiers from Task Force 34, were in a critical condition this evening.

The scene to which they had been called was a motorcycle shop, which had been owned by Kim Sae-Kong, He had been shot dead, which led the officers into the trap.

Late last night in a village in Yarang district, Pattani province, a police corporal who was on patrol was shot dead. Cpl. Uthit Sanitnok (Uthit Sanitnong) was 26 years old. TNA English News reports that 120 police officers searched the scene of his killing, and found spent shell casings from automatic weapons.

As policemen are frequently the targets of Muslim insurgents, 36 police vans have been reinforced with steel plating. Pol. Maj. Gen. Kokiart, the chief of police in Pattani, states that there are plans to put similar armour around 60 more vans.

Earlier in the day on Saturday, a police sergeant major was killed in a drive-by shooting in Rusoh district, Narathiwat province. 35 year old Thawat Buasri was leaving his home to go to work at around 6 am, when two gunmen on a motorcycle arrived, and shot him with one bullet, states the Nation. The policeman died from loss of blood.

Today, according to Bangkok Post, the owner of an elephant troupe was shot dead by insurgents in a soccer field in Muang district, Yala province. 24 year old Mongkol Triyos, who came from Chaiyaphum, was approached by two men, who claimed they wanted to but tickets for the elephant show. They shot him twice in the chest, and once in the face.

Because of the overwhelming amount of information to sift through, regarding the terror plot which was revealed in the UK on August 10, I have been late with our regular round-up of events in the Muslim south of Thailand. Our last update on the situation was on Tuesday August 8.

We wrote then that 50-year old Fauziya Uttarasin, the younger sister of Areepen Uttarasin, a former MP for the Thai Rak Thai party in Narathiwat province, had been shot that morning in Sungai Padi district. Apparently the bullet which hit her was intended for her brother. She was shot in the arm, but not seriously hurt.

On Monday evening (Aug 7), a bomb went off in Yala province around 7 pm, in Bannang Sata district, on the road leading to the Banglang dam. Burning tires had been placed in the vicinity, and shortly before a military patrol team was due to inspect this incident, the bomb went off. No-one was hurt.

On Tuesday, at around 9 am, a rubber tapper was killed in Yala province. 43 year old Sama-ae Saniming was killed in a rubber plantation in Yaha district.

On Wednesday, a medical team at Prince of Songkhla Hospital announced that an outgoing senator from Narathiwat, Fakruddin Bothor, could be paralysed. He had been shot in the neck, with the bullet leaving through his cheek, in Rangae district on Sunday (7 August), by militants on motorcycles.

Also Wednesday, police arrested another individual, Suedee Maroseh, for his alleged part in the assault upon two female Buddhist teachers in Gujingruepo village in Rangae district, Narathiwat province on May 19. One of the teachers, 26-year old Juling Pongkanmul remains in a coma since the incident. Suedee Maroseh was arrested in Rangae district.

In Krong Pinang DIstrict, Yala province, a 66 year old owner of a gasoline station was shot dead on Wednesday afternoon by drive-by assailants. on the previous evening in Muang district in Yala,two pickup trucks at a mining company car park were set ablaze.

On Thursday, the Interior Minister, Air Chief Marshal Kongsak Wanthana, told reporters that Muslim leaders have asked for the arrests of militants by the military to stop, suggesting instead that they use the cooperation of local people in such arrests. The minister said he agreed with the idea, and announced that his ministry would assign senior district officials and village heads to coordinate the cooperation plans.

A senior member of the insurgent group, the Pattani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo) warned from his base in Sweden that the violence in the south could soon spread from the southern provinces to include Phuket province and Bangkok, the capital. Kasturi Mahkuta said it was possible that "Malay liberation groups" could be thinking of extending their operations.

Kasturi said Pulo has a significant number of officials and armed troops in southern Thailand but refused to say if his group had carried out recent attacks in the south. Caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra dismissed the Pulo claims as "propaganda". The news of the Pulo announcement followed a report by the BBC quoted a Pulo official who said: "I'm very sorry for the families affected but we can't avoid these things happening. If we keep quiet, the government won't take notice of what we want."

Kate McGeown, who wrote the article, said that Pulo was very active in the 1970s and 1980s, but recently has been replaced in news reports by the groups BRN (the Barisan Revolusi Nasional), its offshoot RKK (Runda Kumpularm Kecil) and GMIP (Gerakan Mujahadeen Islam Pattani). The BRN has a youth wing called Permuda, who are thought to have been involved in the recent mass bomb and arson attacks of August 1.

On Thursday morning (Aug 10), a woman was shot and seriously injured by four insurgents who entered her home. 32-year old Rung-rudee Jaiyen, who sold chickens, was in her home with her four children in Ban Tobaka in Rangae district, Narathiwat province.

She was shot in the forehead and right leg, and was taken to hospital, where her condition was said to be critical. Her husband, Mahama Suedee, had been shot dead by insurgents only two weeks earlier.

In Muang district, Yala province on Thursday, 25-year old Muhamasabuding Buenae was shot on a road. A native of Yarang district in Pattani, police are not sure if he was attacked in an insurgent incident or as a result of a personal conflict. He was seriously injured and taken to Yala Centre Hospital.

On Thursday, a former suspected terrorist announced that he will be running in the elections on October 15, standing for the Thai Peace party, Thailand's first Muslim political party. Maisuru Haji Abdullah, who owns a private Islamic school, was acquitted last year of terrorism charges. He had been arrested in June 2003 with a Muslim doctor, Waemahadi Waedao (who won a seat in the April 19 senate election). Both had been accused of belonging to Jemaah Islamiyah the southeast Asian terrorist organisation, responsible for the Bali blasts of October 2002 (killing 202 people) and October 1 last year (killing 20). The Thai Peace party, which was formerly called the Thai Muslim party, will be putting forward five candidates for the October elections. It is headed by Sombat Thasanaprasert.

Also on Thursday, a man suspected of a failed bomb attack on June 30 was arrested at his home in Tak Bai district in Narathiwat province. 20-year old Anurak Jeteh had been identifies by witnesses as being on a motorcycle going to the location of a bomb planed in a road. The bomb had been intended for a convoy escorting teachers. The device went off seconds after the vehicle had passed, and a teacher had been injured by flying shrapnel.

On the same day, families of some of the 78 people who had died in police detention two years ago filed civil cases with the Pattani provincial court. On Oct 25, 2004, Muslim protesters were arrested by officers of Tak Bai police station. They had been protesting about the arrest of six village defence volunteers from tambon Ban Pron, who had been accused of gun theft. The protesters were later transported in military trucks from the police station in Narathiwat to Ingkhayuthaboriharn camp in Pattani province. The arrested men were tied behind their backs and kept face down. In the heat, 78 died of suffocation on the journey.

On Friday, there were two raids upon suspected militant hideouts in Narathiwat province, in which three suspected militants were arrested. A team of 90 police and military and village defense volunteers raided three villages in tambon Bor Ngor in Rangae district, following a tip-off.

They caught a man who had been wanted for the murder of Mahamud Talmee Solong, who had been killed on Tuesday, Aug 8. Two others were caught, suspected of involvement in other attacks.

The insurgency, which seeks to have Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani provinces secede from Thailand, began on Jan 4, 2004, and has now claimed more than 1,300 lives. The insurgents believe in the re-establishment of the former sultanate of Pattani, which used to be independent, and comprised the territory of the three provinces, as well as two districts of adjacent Songhkla district. Following an invasion by Thailand in 1786, the provinces were officially annexed into Thailand a century ago, in 1902.

The population in the southern provinces is 80% Muslim and these are ethnic Malays. The local Muslims speak Yawi, a dialect of Malay. The three southern provinces are the poorest in the country, with high levels of unemployment. The national average of unemployment is 14%, but in Yala it is 35%, in Narathiwat it is 28%, and in Pattani the rate is 25%.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at August 13, 2006 5:59 PM

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