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Thai militants turning tech
savvy
By B Raman
The panel at right gives available
details of terrorist incidents reported
from southern Thailand since last October 25 when 85 Muslim
youths arrested by Thai security forces during a
demonstration outside a police station died due to
suffocation while they and many others were being
transported to their place of intended detention.
The details show that despite stepped-up
counter-terrorism measures taken by the Thai
authorities, the organization or organizations
responsible for the incidents have managed to
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MOUNTING TOLL
The following
is a collation of terrorist incidents since
October 25, 2004, in Thailand's three
Muslim-majority southern provinces - Narathiwat,
Yala and Pattani - (in descending chronological
order), as well as the latest incident in
Songkhla province.
2005
April 3: Two persons were killed and
many injured in explosions at the main airport,
a department store and a hotel in the Songkhla
province, just north of the three
Muslim-majority southern provinces, thereby
extending the area of operation of the
terrorists. Several foreigners were among those
wounded in the explosions. A blast at Hat Yai
International Airport, the main gateway to
Thailand's deep south, killed two people.
According to unofficial reports, another IED
exploded at the Carrefour department store in
Hat Yai town lead to the deaths of three people,
but this has not been officially confirmed. Dr
Pairoj Waratip, deputy director of Hat Yai
hospital, reportedly told The Associated Press
that 54 people were injured in the blasts,
including an American and a French woman, both
of whom suffered minor injuries. According to
the local police, the injured also included two
men from Malaysia and two people from Brunei.
The airport IED had been left in a bag in the
waiting area by an unidentified man.The IED at
the Dream World Hotel was hidden in a
motorcycle. According to the CNN, cell phones
were used as trigger in all three explosions.
March 27: Terrorists used two bombs
to stop an armored train patrolling in the south
then fired on police who were travelling by the
train. About 20 police and some civilians were
wounded.
March 26: A Buddhist worker was shot
dead and two others, including a state railway
worker, were injured in two attacks.
March 19: Fifteen people, 10 of them
police, were injured in two explosions, one of
which was detonated by a cell phone.
March 17: A police car and a
bulldozer were damaged in an explosion.
March 15: One policeman was killed
and three others were injured in an explosion.
March 7: Two police and three unknown
attackers were killed in a shootout, when five
gunmen disguised as veiled Muslim women stormed
a police station.
March 6: A Buddhist
monk was killed by gunmen wielding hand-held
weapons.
March 4: Two police deputed to
protect teachers were injured in an explosion.
March 2: A retired policeman and
another person, both Buddhists, were killed by
suspected terrorists wielding hand-held weapons.
February 27: Two Muslims were
assassinated by unidentified persons.
February 17: Seven people were killed
and 40 others injured in a car-bomb explosion
outside a hotel.
January 20: Three Buddhists were shot
dead and two children were injured by suspected
terrorists.
January 16 : One person was killed
and more than 50 others were injured in an explosion in a
commercial area.
January 7: An explosion occurred at a
railroad crossing, but no casualties were
reported. One Buddhist was shot dead in another
incident.
2004
December 24:Two persons were killed
in an explosion outside a bank.
December 15: Four Buddhists, one of
them a village chief and another a teacher, were
shot dead by suspected terrorists.
December 11: An arms store was raided
by suspected terrorists and five shotguns were
stolen.
December 10: Three railway explosions
took place. No casualties were reported.
December 7: Two explosions and an
attempted explosion were reported. No casualties
occurred.
December 2: One Buddhist teacher was
shot dead by suspected terrorists riding a
scooter.
November 6: In the first week of
November 2004, about a dozen Buddhists, many of
them monks, were shot dead in different
incidents - apparently in retaliation for the
deaths of 85 Muslims due to suffocation while
being transported by the security forces after
their arrest following a demonstration outside a
police station on October 25, 2004.
October 28: Two people were killed
and 38 injured in two
explosions. | maintain
a continuous series of attacks at regular
intervals, without, however, causing any mass
casualties.
The terrorists have been
following a modus operandi of targeted
killings of Buddhist civilians, many of them monks
and teachers, policemen and other members of the
security forces involved in counter-terrorism
duties, as well as attempts at indiscriminate
killings of civilians through the use of explosive
devices.
The targeted killings have
generally involved the use of hand-held weapons
that are not very sophisticated. They have been
mostly revolvers, pistols and what, in India, we
call country-made weapons; that is, weapons
crudely fabricated locally. There have been hardly
any reports of sophisticated hand-held weapons
such as the AK series of rifles, which are used in
large numbers by the jihadi terrorists in India
and Pakistan. Also not seen is the use of
hand-grenades and landmines, which are frequently
used by jihadi terrorists in India's Jammu and
Kashmir and Maoists in India and Nepal.
Hand-grenades are also used by the jihadi
terrorists in Bangladesh.
An
often-repeated modus operandi for targeted
assassinations of individuals in Thailand is for
two militants to travel on a two-wheeler and for
the one in the rear to take out a weapon and kill
the target. This helps in rapid a getaway after
the killing without being captured by bystanders
or the police. This tactic is often used by the
jihadi terrorists in Pakistan, particularly by
those of the anti-Shi'ite Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.
Of significance is the large number of
terrorist incidents involving the use of
improvised explosive devices (IEDs). While the
explosives that have been used were not of severe
destructive quality and could have been procured
locally, the techniques used in assembling the
IEDs and having them triggered indicate some
sophistication involving special training, either
locally or in foreign countries.
In this connection,
attention needs to be drawn to
Thailand's first car-bomb explosion outside a hotel on February
17 in which seven people were killed and
40 others injured, and to recurring instances of the
use of cell phones for detonating an IED. A
modified cell phone as a remotely activated
trigger was first used by Palestinian terrorists at
the Hebrew University in Israel in July 2002. Since
then, knowledge of its use has spread to
jihadi terrorists in other countries. In Thailand, the attack
on an armored patrol train this March 27 and the subsequent
attacks on Sunday of targets such as an airport and a
hotel linked to tourism speak of
sophisticated tactics involving orchestration. The three explosions
on Sunday were all triggered through mobile phones.
The use of cell phones facilitates remote
activation. It also enables terrorists to use
unconscious human carriers of IEDs, which are
activated through a cell phone, thereby giving the
impression of a conscious suicide attack.
Glorified tales of suicide missions are then used
by the terrorist organizations in their
recruitment drive. It had been reported in 2003
that one of the people carrying a package involved
in the May 2003 Casablanca bombings was not aware
it contained an IED, which was activated through a
cell phone by terrorists as soon as the carrier
reached the vicinity of the intended target. The
Chechens were also reported to have used this
method for blowing up two planes last year.
Jihadi terrorists and Palestinian groups
have also allegedly used teenagers as unconscious
human bombs, which were detonated through cell
phones. The sole incident so far involving the use
of a car bomb and the recurring instances of the
use of cell phones to trigger IEDs indicate that
the terrorists operating in southern Thailand are
becoming increasingly technology savvy.
However, their growing expertise in the
use of modern technology is seen only in relation
to the assembly of the IEDs and their
remote-controlled detonation, and not in their
centralized command and control, if there is any,
of networking, communications and psychological
warfare (psywar).
So far there is no
confirmed evidence of any centralized command and
control emanating from outside southern Thailand,
though there is evidence of inspiration and
assistance for jihadi terrorism emanating from
outside - more from the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami
of Bangladesh (HUJI-B) than from the Jemaah
Islamiyah (JI) of Southeast Asia. Individuals from
southern Thailand continue to go to Bangladesh to
study in the madrassas run by the HUJI-B
and to be trained in jihadi terrorism. The
Rohingya Muslim cadres of the HUJI-B, recruited
from the Arakan area of Myanmar and trained in
camps in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region, are also
playing an increasing role in the recruitment,
motivation and training of the volunteers from
southern Thailand. Bangladesh continues to be the
web of terrorist funding, not only in Thailand,
but also increasingly in other countries of
Southeast Asia.
An analysis of the Thai
terrorist incidents indicates the following:
The terrorists emulate the post-June 2003
example of the Iraqi resistance fighters, who
operate in small autonomous cells without the need
for a noticeable organizational infrastructure and
consciously refrain from claiming responsibility
for their successes. In this respect, the modus
operandi of the Iraqi resistance fighters
differs from that of the pro-al-Qaeda foreign
terrorists, who do not hesitate to claim
successes.
The post-January 2004 terrorists in southern
Thailand seem to be a mutation from those of the
1970s and 1980s. They are impervious to control by
the traditional leaders of the Muslim community,
either in southern Thailand or in the adjoining
areas of Malaysia. Exercises, such as encouraging
a group of people from the Nahdlatul Ulama, the
largest Muslim organization in Indonesia, to tour
southern Thailand in order to exercise a
moderating influence on the angry Muslim youth,
though laudable, are unlikely to produce results
in the short and medium terms.
As has happened in Afghanistan
and Iraq, where the use of a
highly militarized counter-terrorism approach by the Americans has
added to Muslim anger and driven more youths
into the welcoming arms of jihadi
terrorist leaders and organizations, the apparent
emulation of the US militarized approach by
the Thai counter-terrorism authorities is
fueling the jihadi fire. As in Afghanistan and
Iraq, in southern Thailand, too,
counter-terrorism as practiced by the security forces has
itself become a root cause of aggravation.
While the recrudescence of terrorism in January
2004 might have been for classic reasons, such as feelings
of alienation among local Muslim youths due to
ethnic, economic and social factors, the
counter-terrorism methods used by the Thai forces
have provided a new motivating and sustaining
factor.
Jihadi terrorism in southern Thailand is still
in the early stages of its evolution and does not
yet command the kind of expertise and specialized
capabilities one finds in South and West Asia.
There is no effective use of the Internet by the
terrorists and very little evidence of the use of
sophisticated psywar techniques involving virulent
propaganda campaigns against non-Muslims and
security forces. While the motivation of the new
breed of jihadi terrorists is strengthening, it is
not comparable to the level of their
co-religionists in South and West Asia. The
absence of confirmed instances of suicide
terrorism can be attributed to this.
The jihadis of southern Thailand, who had
until now avoided attacks on tourism targets that
could lead to the deaths of foreigners and the
possible induction of foreign counter-terrorism
expertise, as happened in Indonesia after the
October 2002 Bali bombing, have since started
attacking tourist spots, such as an airport, a
hotel frequented by foreign tourists and a
department store of French origin. But their
attacks are still confined to the Muslim-majority
southern provinces and their vicinity, where the
militants are confident of local support and
sanctuary. They have not yet ventured into other
areas such as Bangkok, Pattaya and Phuket -
probably because they are not confident of similar
support from the local Muslim community.
In a statement before a joint session of
the Thai parliament on March 29, Prime Minister
Thaksin Shinawatra conceded the possibility that
the counter-terrorism methods followed thus far
might themselves be further fueling jihadi
terrorism. He has promised a more nuanced and
softer approach. However, he has yet to spell out
the details of the new approach.
Any new
approach will have to be based on:
1.
Strengthening the country's intelligence
collection and utilization and post-attack
investigative capabilities, which continue to be
poor. The terrorists are better informed of the
plans and movements of the security forces than
vice versa.
2. Demilitarization of
counter-terrorism methods. This should involve the
use of the police as the weapon of first resort
against terrorism, better counter-terrorism
training for the police, better police-Muslim
community relations, better incentives for the
police to perform counter-terrorism duties, better
observance of human rights, etc.
3.
Improvement of internal security management under
civilian control.
4. A national consensus on
the formulation of a new counter-terrorism policy,
with the opposition, which swept the polls in the
south in the recent elections, playing an active
role.
5. A social and economic package
addressing the ethnic, economic and social causes
of Muslim anger. In particular, this should
provide for job-generating investments, the
provision of an alternate, secular educational
system, modernization of the curricula of the
madrassas, and the setting up of vocational
training institutions, including institutes of
technology of excellence.
6. Activation of
civil society and sensitivity and receptivity in
dealing with the reports and complaints of human
rights and other non-governmental organizations.
B Raman is additional secretary
(retired), cabinet secretariat, government of
India, and currently director, Institute for
Topical Studies, Chennai, and distinguished fellow
and convenor, Observer Research Foundation,
Chennai Chapter. E-mail itschen36@gmail.com .
(Copyright 2005 B
Raman) |
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