User:Brian McNeil/work/South Thailand insurgency/RIA-Archive 01

=Reports on insurgency activity= Current reports

October 2005



 * "Insurgents attack Buhhdist temple in Pattani... Takienthong temple... cars set alight... second such arson attack in a month".

November 2005



 * "Martial law has been imposed in parts of Songkhla province in southern Thailand. ... two districts of Chana and Thepha, which border three southern provinces already under tight restrictions." (Pattani, Narathiwat, Yala) "three people had been killed in the latest violence in the region, including one man who was beheaded. ... army instituted martial law for parts of Songkhla after eight fake explosives were found in Thepha and Chana districts, The Nation newspaper reported." (missed getting the relevant Nation article)




 * "Militants wreaked havoc in several districts of Yala last night, firing on government offices, torching state property and killing two people. ... occurred while Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was in the South. ... targets ... Ba Lor police station in Raman, a police station and gas station in Bannang Sata, a tambon administrative office in Than To and a local administrative office in Krong Pinang. ... fighting between separatists and the military in Bannang Sata district."




 * "leading member of the Pattani Mujahideen was killed Monday night ... Soldiers and police exchanged gunfire with some 30 insurgents in Bannang Sata district Monday night, after the heavily-armed insurgents attacked the district office, the police station and an army base outside a temple. ... Two attackers were killed in the 20-minute clash Monday night. One was identified as Hasueming Jarong, a leading member of a Pattani Mujahideen group for whose arrest a one million baht reward was offered."




 * "The managing director of a local newspaper has been shot dead in Narathiwat's Sungai Kolok district late Monday. ... Abdulloh Mama, the 37-year-old editor of the Thongtin Thai newspaper ... pronounced dead at hospital a short time later. Police have established two possible motives for the killing. Either it was a personal conflict or part of the unrest."




 * "Security officials have detained three male Muslim teenagers for questioning following their arrest at a Bangkok amusement park with a map of the capital with 43 large public gathering spots and the Defence Ministry marked out. ... The three teenagers claimed they wanted to visit Bangkok and see the Phya Tani cannon at the Defence Ministry, a source said. The ancient cannon originated from the southern region."




 * "government announced today it has sent special intelligence teams to the South to gather information and target insurgents and criminal gangs from a number of different directions. ... teams will not only confront insurgents but are also charged with seeking out those who may be financially supporting them, such as drug dealers, extortionists and other outlawed influential figures ... teams come from...Department of Special Investigation, the Anti-Money-Laundering Office, the Office of the Narcotics Control Board, the Royal Thai Police and the Revenue Department ... another development, insurgents killed a couple from the Northeast who had set up a grocery shop in Pattani province ... Their 10-year-old child was allowed to live after witnessing the murders."




 * "Appeal Court on Tuesday upheld life sentences for treason and other crimes given to four Thai Muslim men for leading a Muslim separatist movement. ... Court was told that the four belonged to the Pattani United Liberation Organization (Pulo), the main separatist movement in southern Thailand in the 1970s and 1980s. ... men were arrested in 1998"




 * "Suspected militants attacked three homes belonging to Thai-Moslems early Wednesday in a remote village in Thailand's troubled Narathiwat province, killing nine people and injuring seven others including four children, police said. ... attack occurred at 1 a.m. local time Wednesday in Rang Ngae district, 790 kilometres south of Bangkok ... Rang Ngae villagers blocked reporters from entering the village Wednesday morning, in a show of mistrust for the Thai media. "




 * "Local villagers have sealed off their village in Narathiwat province, preventing security officials after suspected militants ambushed two houses in the village and killed nine and injured nine others. ... authorities have deployed around 300 personnels at Bo Ngo village in the province's Rangae district. But did not take any action out of fear for reoccurring of Tanyong Limo tragedy in which villagers beat to death two marines ... Initial report showed that an unknown number of militants used grenades and automatic weapons"






 * "The Narcotics Control Board said today it is closely watching drug dealer networks believed to be providing financial support to insurgent operations in the deep South ... NCB Secretary-General Pol Lt-Gen Krisana Pol-anand noted that police have targeted more than 10 drug trafficking rings believed to be financially backing insurgent operations with a cash flow estimated between 200 and 300 million baht."




 * "Two bombs exploded among holiday shoppers at a restaurant and a border market at Sungai Golok, Narathiwat province early this morning. One Malaysian and 11 Thais were injured. "




 * "Two more people, including a deputy village chief, were killed by suspected militants in Narathiwat province, police said Tuesday. ... Muslim villager Ma-ae Taha, 45, was killed when two assailants burst into his house ... separate attack Monday night, Muslim Maroseh Jehsamorjeh...ambushed by...suspected militants who shot him eight times"




 * "The decapitated body of a local government official was found in southern Thailand Wednesday after he was murdered by suspected Islamic militants, police said...Also on Wednesday, a Thai policeman was shot and wounded in the the neighbouring province of Yala ... latest in a string of violent incidents in Thailand's deep south that have claimed a total of 1,016 lives since January 2004, according to Thai police"




 * "The two soldiers were part of a team of six soldiers on motorcycles, on their way to pick up teachers to escort them to school when the bomb was triggered by attackers using 70-m. long cable hidden in the jungle"




 * "Two Thai Muslim men have been shot dead in separate attacks by suspected militants in Pattani, while four soldiers were seriously wounded in bomb attacks,"




 * "Narathiwat _ Security forces raided 10 target spots and confiscated assets worth more than 10 million baht from suspected drug traffickers with alleged involvement in violent unrest in Sungai Padi and Tak Bai districts, authorities said yesterday. ... According to governor Pracha Terat, the suspects colluded in perpetrating violence in the province and used drugs to lure youngsters into the insurgency."




 * "Uma Ahma, 30, was shot three times late Sunday by gunmen who followed him and his wife to their home in Rue So district of Narathiwat province late Sunday, police said."




 * "The government has dismissed a call to provide amnesty to insurgents in the Muslim-majority southern border provinces who abandon the armed struggle"




 * "The government has dismissed a call for those insurgents in the Muslim-majority southern border provinces who abandon the armed struggle to be amnestied, saying its current strategy is already producing results ... Deputy Prime Minister Chidchai Vanasatidya was responding to a suggestion from Prawes Wasi, deputy chairman of the government-appointed National Reconciliation Commission.   Dr. Prawes said the government should offer a six-month amnesty to all those lay down their arms and take part in national development, arguing that a similar strategy helped end the communist insurgency in Thailand 25 years ago."

December 2005



 * "Pattani - About 500 members of the armed forces raided nine suspected locations in two villages in Nong Chik district's tambon Tuyong yesterday morning, upsetting residents ... The raids took place in Ban Pakaluesong and Ban Takong - hours after authorities detained a suspect for questioning over a spate of bomb attacks and ambushes two months ago ...  A member of a village defence team who wanted to be identified only as Ae said the operations upset the villagers and had made them more frightened"




 * "Dec 9 (TNA) - A husband and wife were shot dead by unidentified gunmen when they rode a motorcycle to a rubber plantation in the violence-plagued province of Narathiwat ... Police believed that the killing was related to the unrest in the deep south."




 * "Nearly 1,000 villagers from two separate groups in Narathiwat's Sungai Padi district seized two schools briefly yesterday and held executives and teachers hostage in return for the release of two detainees police arrested after a shooting in the far South. ... held school director Jitraphong Yapa, and 9 teachers as hostages, then demanded police release two villagers held after a shooting in the village. ... hostages were released after the villagers realised that the two men were taken to the police station as eyewitnesses of the shooting, not suspects."




 * "Violence was averted Monday afternoon as police released two young men in exchange for 22 schoolteachers taken hostage by angry villagers. ... mainly Buddhist teachers were held by an estimated one thousand Muslim villagers in two schools in the southern province of Narathiwat ... ungaipadi district villagers gathered at two schools -- Baan Aibatu School where 12 teachers were detained and Banlaharn School ... villagers included men, women, children and the elderly ... one hundred police officers entered the schools and escorted the teachers"

January 2006



 * "Suspected militants shot dead a Buddhist village defence volunteer and critically injured a colleague on Tuesday in Narathiwat province, police said. Somchai Sae-ngao, 35, was pronounced dead on the way to to Ra Ngae district hospital in Narathiwat after being shot four times in the chest by two suspected militants on a motorcycle, police said. "




 * " Police are hunting a Muslim suspect implicated in numerous bomb attacks in the far South and who is believed to be in hiding in Bangkok, Crime Suppression Division (CSD) commander Pol Maj-Gen Vinai Thongsong said yesterday. The man, identified as Faisol Hayesama-aae, 23, is suspected of having perpetrated the Hat Yai airport bombing, which killed and wounded scores of people in April of last year."




 * "Two elderly villagers have been killed in separate attacks in the deep South in what police said Monday were attempts by suspected militants to escalate the violence."




 * " A village defence volunteer and a local resident were shot dead and another villager seriously wounded in separate attacks in Yala yesterday. ... Suspected militants... killed Nimit Chanthalikkhae, 38, a village defence volunteer. ... Raman district, Daeng Saengkaew, 46, was shot in the right chest yesterday morning ...  Less than an hour later, Thong Champathong, 60, was shot and killed about one kilometre from Tasae railway station in Muang district"




 * " Violence swept through the deep South yesterday as militants set fires at 26 locations across Pattani and Yala and launched attacks that killed a policeman and injured two teachers and three soldiers. The attacks followed an announcement by the Information and Communications Technology Ministry seeking cooperation from Kuala Lumpur to prevent militants using pre-paid SIM cards from Malaysia to detonate bombs in the South."




 * "Authorities in Yala's Bannang Sata district went on the offensive over the weekend and Sunday night intercepted a suspected insurgent bombmaker before he could carry out what they believed was his next mission. ... Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Minister Pol. Gen. Chidchai Vanasatidya said Monday that the authorities Sunday night stopped an insurgent operation in the making ... preemptive searches and attacks by police and military units over the weekend had prevented a suspected insurgent from carrying out a planned attack"




 * "'' A former army ranger was shot dead early Friday in Yala province.

Apisith Gueaji, 37, was shot by two suspected militants in Yala province.police said. The militants sped off, dropping spikes in the road behind them to prevent police from following.''"