Fatal gun attacks, bombing shake Thailand’s south

By Max Constant

BANGKOK (AA) – Thailand’s insurgency-plagued Muslim south was rocked by violence Thursday that saw a group of gunmen kill one paramilitary ranger and injure two others in Narathiwat province, while an attack at a gas station in neighboring Pattani left a young woman dead and seven other people wounded.

Police major Chanawut Kuetsai, deputy-investigator at Sungai Kolok police station in Narathiwat, told Anadolu Agency, “ten insurgents riding motorbikes shot with AK-47 automatic rifles at three paramilitary rangers who were on duty in front of a school in Sungai Kolok district.”

He said a ranger who sustained several bullet wounds died on the spot, while two others tried to escape but were chased and injured by the gunmen.

“The insurgents then took the weapons of the three military,” Kuetsai added.

Two hours later, another attack occurred at a gas station in Khokpho district of Pattani province.

Police major Kiatchai Nakre of the Khokpho police station told Anadolu Agency that an armed group arrived at the site and shot at a female employee, killing her instantly.

“After the killing, they placed a remote-controlled bomb at the gas station, and when police and paramilitary rangers came to investigate the incident, the bomb exploded injuring seven persons,” he said, without disclosing how many security officers were among the wounded.

Local police are blaming the attacks on insurgents, who have been waging a violent campaign against the central Thai state and its representatives in the three southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, as well as several districts of Songkhla province.

Last week, Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group (ICG) released a report saying that dialogue between the military government and the insurgents “has foundered” because both sides “prefer hostilities to compromise”.

“The National Council for Peace and Order [NCPO], which seized power in the 2014 coup, professes to support dialogue to end the insurgency but avoids commitment,” the report said, referring to the ruling junta by its official name.

On the insurgent side, the main active group -- the National Revolutionary Front (BRN) -- has “rejected the process”, and the degree of control an main umbrella group involved in the talks -- Mara Patani -- has over rebels active on the ground is “unknown”, according the report.

After a May 2014 coup brought the current junta to power, the military regime restarted a peace dialogue initially launched in 2013 by the elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra that was overthrown in the putsch.

Since 2015, a series of meetings have taken place in Kuala Lumpur between a Thai military delegation and Mara Patani -- which claims to represent the Malay-Muslim insurgents -- with the Malaysian government acting as a facilitator.

But according to the report, the military regime has primarily regarded the dialogue as a public relations exercise “to show locals and the international community that it does the right thing”.

The ICG also noted that the refusal of the BRN to participate in the talks will prevent the dialogue from delivering “a lasting solution”.

The level of violence in Thailand’s south has markedly risen over the past two months, with a series of deadly bombings hitting tourist areas in August and an explosion killing a four-year-old school girl and her father earlier this month.

The southern insurgency is rooted in a century-old ethno-cultural conflict between Malay Muslims living in the southern region and the Thai central state where Buddhism is considered the de-facto national religion.

Armed insurgents groups were formed in the 1960s after the then-military dictatorship tried to interfere in Islamic schools, but the insurgency faded in the 1990s.

In 2004, a rejuvenated armed movement -- composed of numerous local cells of fighters loosely grouped around the BRN -- emerged.

The confrontation is one of the deadliest low-intensity conflicts on the planet, with more than 7,000 people killed and over 11,000 injured since 2004.