The Islamic insurgency in Thailand, if not eliminated in a constructive and timely manner, has the very real potential of falling under the influence of transnational terrorist networks like JI. This warning assumes that such a marriage of threats has not already occurred. The current ineffectiveness in combating the internal instability and insurgency in the south presents a very attractive opportunity for more influential and powerful external threats to enter the region. The southern region is already saturated with numerous small, militant Islamic organizations that are ideal targets for recruitment under the umbrella of JI. The first generations of Southeast Asian militant Islamic insurgents, to include Thai Muslims, got their taste of jihad when many traveled to Afghanistan in the 1980s to help the Mujahideen fight the Soviets (Ressa, 2003, p.12). In order for organizations such as Jemaah Islamiah to continue to exist and grow, there is a need for the terrorist generations of the future to be motivated by their own jihads. The spilling of non-Muslim blood in Afghanistan is what gave the originators of today’s terrorist organizations in Southeast Asia, who have schooled and trained and fought in the Middle East alongside the mujahideen, a fanaticism that has never been witnessed before. As Abuza notes, “Up to a thousand Southeast Asian Muslims fought with the mujahidin in the 1980s, and there is an Afghan connection to most of the radical Islamic groups [in Southeast Asia]” (Abuza, 2003b, p. 10). Small-scale terrorism in Thailand, which has grown exponentially since early January 2004, should at least be considered as more than random acts of banditry by local criminals. It is exactly the current type of hostile, unstable violence that attracts JI to step in,
organize, and take in to the “family” the smaller groups of insurgents who before were operating without coordinated direction.
It is not unreasonable to envision a recruiting effort by JI that highlights to the southern Muslim population the Thai government’s inability to take care of its own Muslim citizens. More disturbing is to consider that perhaps JI has already infiltrated the region. A scenario that must be considered is that JI has been manipulating the south’s instability to make the proposition of a unified Southeast Asian Islamic insurgency all the more attractive to the disenfranchised south.
As Doctor Panitan Wattanayagorn from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok has said, the insurgency in the south has evolved (Wattanayagorn, 2004). By recalling events in 2003 and 2004, he demonstrates the progression of violence from random acts of violence to coordinated insurgency. According to Panitan, there is now a more systematic, organized method that has taken over insurgent operations in the south. This organized military approach indicates that there is possibly support from external sources. As Panitan points out, the people in the south no longer provide information to the security forces. On January 4, 2004, the first raid occurred on the southern Army depot where weapons were stolen and soldiers were killed. The insurgents were testing the military and overestimated the strength of the Army – they easily overran the camp. Then things were quiet again until April 28, 2004. A systematic insurgent raid on multiple security outposts in the south occurred. More than a hundred insurgents were killed. This time the insurgents had underestimated the security forces. But the attack was even more systematic and coordinated than in January. The insurgency is not diminishing and the increased coordination and strategizing indicates that a more sophisticated, external element is helping to orchestrate the violence (Wattanayagorn, 2004).
Asia Times reporter Julian Gearing has written that, “Disaffected youth [in the southern provinces], many of whom speak little or no Thai, are easy prey to the growing influence of a purist form of Islam and what they may view as the heroic struggle of jihadists such as Osama bin Laden” (2004).
On March 31, 2004, armed insurgents raided a mining quarry in Yala Province. After tying up two security guards, ten masked men armed with assault rifles stole 1.4 tons of ammonium nitrate (commonly used as fertilizer but also easily used as an explosive), 58 sticks of dynamite, and 180 detonators. Considering the amount of explosives stolen, it seemed evident that the responsible insurgents were larger attacks. As the deputy chief of Thailand’s Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC – a southern command established for conducting stability and security operations in the troubled provinces), General Pallop Pinmanee stated that, “With this amount of fertilizer, you could blow up a whole town” (“Explosives stolen in Thai raid,” 2004). In a
Bangkok Post report that appeared two days after the quarry raid, the attackers
were identified as a PULO bomb expert, other locals from Narathiwat Province, and two Indonesian nationals. More importantly, one of the Indonesians, only known by the name Muka, “was said to be a relative of Hambali, the Indonesian operations chief of the Jemaah Islamiah terrorist group who was arrested in Thailand last year” (Pathan, M.A., 2004a).
Deputy Chief of ISOC, General Pallop Pinmanee, announced in late March 2004 that the number of active insurgents in Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat provinces was around 500 with a goal of expanding to 3,000 insurgents. In March 2004 there were as many as 70,000 insurgent sympathizers in the deep south, meaning 3-5% of the three southern province’s 1.6 million population were separatist sympathizers. A further indicator of increased organizational design was that the insurgency was structurally organized into “core members, armed trainees and sympathizers or ‘united front’ members” (“Pallop says rebels have huge support,” 2004).
Although the Thai government acknowledged in 2003 that transnational terrorists were using Thailand as a networking hub, the Thai government claims that the violence specific to the southern provinces is not a result of international terrorist influence. Brief statements from government officials, such as Defense Minister General Chetta Thanacharo’s comments that participation of foreign
terror groups in southern violence can not be ruled out, are usually as far as the Thai government goes in addressing the possibility of a viable international terrorist capability in Thailand (“Pallop says rebels have huge support,” 2004).
James T. Kirkhope, a research director from the Terrorism and Research Center in Arlington, Virginia has said,
A review of historical Thai-Muslim antagonisms and recalling the arrest of Hambali, an Indonesian leader of both al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiya, provides fuel to the belief that a burgeoning separatist insurgent terrorist campaign with some limited external support may not be far fetched (Gearing, 2004).
Supat Boontanom, editor of Chao Tai (Southern People) newspaper in Yala, describes the influx of foreign nationals in the south. As Boontanom reported in April of 2004, “There have been a lot of Indonesians coming to southern Thailand, as they can enter easily because of our weak laws. They have tried to be congenial with local people in the deep south” (Gearing, 2004). With reference to an increased Indonesian presence in southern Thailand, it should also be noted that Jemaah Islamiah, Pondok Ngruki (the Islamic boarding school in Central Java that schooled many of the men who have been linked to AQ), Hambali (the JI operations chief), and Abu Bakar Ba’asyir (the Amir of Jemaah Islamiah), all have originated in Indonesia.
According to the US Department of State’s “Patterns of Global Terrorism – 2003” report, “Extremists [in Southeast Asia] have been able to win supporters by financially supporting schools and mosques that espouse their brand of Islam and exploiting religious sympathies or discontent among Muslim populations. Muslim populations in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and Cambodia are vulnerable to such radical influences.”
B. CONCLUSION
Dr. Zachary Abuza has described the insurgency in Thailand by simply stating that militants “are no longer fighting for Pattani liberation against the imperialist Siamese. They are fighting for Islamic Jihad” (Gearing, 2004).
Accepting the fact that today’s global Islamic insurgency directly impacts every country in the Southeast Asian region, including Thailand, is a crucial first step toward achieving stability in the Kingdom. On November 16, 2004, PM Thaksin made his most bold statement to date by announcing that foreign Islamic extremists were supporting the violence in the south. He said that the assistance came from individual relationships developed while Thais studied abroad in the Middle East and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. The Prime Minister denied, however, that any international terrorist organizations were sponsoring the conflict – asserting only that individual assistance was occurring. Thaksin said that hundreds of Thai Muslims had traveled to Middle Eastern countries and that Thai security agencies believed that some had received terrorist and militia training while abroad (Wannabovorn, 2004).
The insurgent movement in the south, which was never able to achieve anything more than agitation of the Thai government for decades, has now begun to exhibit more organized, systematic operations. If transnational terrorists have not yet established a base of influence among the southern radical constituency that is engaged in the south’s insurgency, it must at least be acknowledged that the situation is “ripe” for such an introduction to occur.
V.
CURRENT THAI AND US ANTI-TERRORISM POLICIES
Although US power is still predominant in Southeast Asia, it will erode steadily if US policy does not take fundamental concerns in the region into account. In this instance, a separation between security policy and economic and social policy is a false dichotomy, one that could damage US relations with Southeast Asia in the long run (“US security relations with Southeast Asia: a dual challenge,” 2004, p.4).
A. THAILAND’S POLICIES AND ROLE IN THE GLOBAL WAR ON