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| Southeast Asia |
| Islamic separatists challenge Bangkok |
| 2004-05-17 |
| An uprising in southern Thailand by Muslim separatists — in which Thai soldiers recently killed more than 100 suspected radicals on a single day, including 30 who took sanctuary in a historic mosque — has opened a new front in Southeast Asia's war on terror. Eric Teo Chu Cheow, chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, said Jemaah leaders met twice in southern Thailand to plan the bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali in 2002 that killed 202 persons, mostly foreign tourists. Local officials say one of the suspects sought for involvement in a January raid at an army camp in southern Thailand is related to Hambali, al Qaeda's operational leader in southeast Asia, who was arrested near Bangkok last year. Independent estimates already put Jemaah membership in southern Thailand as high as 10,000, and the Thai military says that it is hunting down at least 5,000 armed separatists. In the growing unrest, Buddhist Thai nationalists see a threat of "Arab influence" in the region, first brought home in 2002 when two dozen Middle Eastern suspects were arrested for forging travel documents for al Qaeda. Southern Thailand is also home to the Yala Islamic College, run by influential hard-line cleric Ismail Lufti. The modern college is funded by Saudi money and has 800 students taught hard-core Wahhabi doctrine. Vairoj Phiphitpakdee, a Muslim member of parliament for Pattani, has said that some Thai Muslims mistakenly believe that Islam is just about adopting Arab customs. "They're taken to the Middle East, and they're brainwashed," he recently told reporters. The success of the military operation against the Islamist militants depends on closer cooperation from neighboring Malaysia. Thailand says the terrorists find refuge in the northern Malaysian states of Kelantan and Kedah. While there have been official pledges by both governments to boost border patrols, all that has been achieved thus far is the arrest of a sole Malaysian taxi driver, who was charged in Kuala Lumpur with aiding the Thai militants by ferrying some of them across the common border. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |