AN ATOL
INVESTIGATION Better-armed, better-trained Thai
insurgents By Anthony Davis
Long seen as locked in a low-intensity
stalemate, the Malay Muslim separatist conflict in
southern Thailand appears to be escalating towards
a new and more violent phase.
A series of
recent attacks in the embattled region involving
notably larger numbers of better-armed,
better-trained insurgents operating in
well-organized units indicates that separatist
field commanders are seeking to increase the
pressure on Thai security forces, seize more
weapons, and possibly shift the insurgency as a
whole into higher gear.
The harder-hitting
attacks, which mark a significant break with
insurgent tactics in recent years, pose no real
threat to Thai military control over the
conflict-ridden border provinces.
But a
higher tempo of violence involving larger
guerrilla assaults
and necessarily more
aggressive counter-measures will inevitably
undermine Bangkok's "politics-first" strategy for
tamping down the conflict. Escalation also stands
to impact on the still tentative peace process
being pursued by government and separatist
representatives while at the same time raise the
conflict's international profile.
To date,
the separatist campaign of violence in the
majority Malay Muslim provinces of Pattani,
Narathiwat and Yala has rested almost entirely on
two main pillars. One has consisted of attacks
using home-made bombs or improvised explosive
devices (IEDs). Focused primarily against the
security forces, but also occasionally against
civilian targets in urban areas, the IED war has
grown technically and tactically more
sophisticated and shows no sign of abating.
The insurgents' second main tactic has
involved a relentless campaign of daily targeted
killings. Sowing terror across the region,
insurgents have killed and wounded hundreds of
innocent Buddhist civilians, local Muslims deemed
to be collaborating with the authorities, and
off-duty security force personnel of both
religions.
By contrast, direct insurgent
attacks on security force units have played a far
less prominent role in the conflict - and for good
reason: both the military and the police are far
better trained and equipped and almost guaranteed
to win anything more than the briefest exchange of
fire.
Attacks on patrols and bases that
have taken place over the years have been mostly
pin-prick affairs involving two or three gunmen
firing a few shots and then beating a rapid
retreat. Despite the attackers enjoying the choice
of time and place of attack, security force
casualties have been the exception rather than the
rule.
Two conclusions that are not
mutually exclusive can be drawn from this pattern
of attacks. The first is that local village-based
guerrillas known as RKK (from the Malay Runda
Kumpulan Kecil or "small patrol group") have
generally lacked confidence, experience and
possibly ammunition. The second is that insurgents
have been conducting live-ammunition training
exercises, effectively learning on the job.
Bolder tactics Last year,
however, saw a clear change in the pattern of
conflict as insurgent numbers, boldness and
tactical skills all increased.
The most
striking reflection of this shift was a series of
incidents involving guerrillas operating in
platoon-strength where 30 or 40 fighters combined
for a single assault. According to Thai military
sources, these units have been composed mostly of
more experienced RKK elements, but they have also
been stiffened by so-called "commandos", seasoned
guerrilla fighters with specialist training in
fields such as close-quarter assault, demolition
and explosives, and combat medical aid.
Most of these operations have been carried
out in several core districts of Narathiwat -
notably Ra-ngae, Rueso and Sri Sakhorn - a zone
which has developed as a focus of guerrilla
activity for several reasons.
These
include a decade or more of preparatory political
work by the Coordinate faction of the Barisan
Revolusi Nasional (BRN-C), the driving force
behind the insurgency; topography dominated by the
mountainous spine of the Budo range that
facilitates movement and training; and the zone's
centrality to other important areas of guerrilla
activity, notably Cho Airong, Yi-ngor and Bacho
districts in Narathiwat, Raman and Muang districts
in Yala, and Ka-phor in Pattani.
An
ominous indication of the insurgents' new tactics
came one year ago on January 19, 2011, when an
estimated 40 fighters backed by local support
elements overran a Royal Thai Army (RTA) company
base in Maruebo Ork sub-district of Ra-ngae,
killing four soldiers, wounding six and seizing at
least 50 fire-arms, mostly automatic rifles and
machine-guns.
The operation, meticulously
planned and executed, marked the largest
concentration of insurgent firepower since the
watershed Cho Airong district arms raid of January
2004 that effectively marked the beginning of
full-blown insurgency.
Given the lull that
followed, it might have been tempting to view the
Ra-ngae attack as a lucky "one-off". But events in
the second half of 2011 suggested that the
business-as-usual complacency that affects many
security force units after eight years of conflict
would be misplaced.
On the evening of
August 24, an estimated 20 insurgents attacked a
post manned by Rangers and defense volunteers in
Thepa district of Songkhla province in an assault
which killed two. In the early hours of the
following day, another well-planned attack
involving at least 30 guerrillas operating in
several teams targeted the compound of a Muslim
village defense force in Yaha district of Yala.
Backed by several IEDs, the attack and an ambush
of Ranger reinforcements killed two and wounded
four.
In late September, in Narathiwat's
Rueso, a group of at least 15 insurgents dressed
in Ranger-style black uniforms emerged from the
jungle in Rueso-ork sub-district in a brazen
daylight operation that, typically, rested on
careful reconnaissance and planning. Opening fire
at close range, they killed four soldiers resting
between teacher escort shifts in an orchard next
to a school. A fifth soldier was wounded and five
automatic rifles were seized.
The most
telling pointer to an emerging trend also played
out in Rueso in an attack in the early hours of
December 13. Clearly intended to replicate the
successful assault of January 19 in Ra-ngae, the
operation brought together a force of around 40
insurgents divided into separate teams for a 2 am
assault on the compound of the tambol
administration organization (TAO) of Suwaree
sub-district which doubles as a military base.
As in January, the attack opened with a
shower of grenades from M-79 launchers and rifle
fire closely followed by an attempt to breach the
perimeter - in this case a wall rather than a
barbed wire entanglement - and overrun part or all
of the facility. At the same time, a second team
launched a diversionary attack on another army
post some two kilometers away while a third used
an electric saw to cut down rubber trees and block
a road to prevent security force reinforcement or
pursuit.
The plan came to grief when two
IEDs placed against the wall - one weighing some
20 kilograms - failed to blow a breach wide enough
to allow the attackers to enter. Significantly,
despite the set-back the insurgents displayed the
same discipline and planning that had been on
display in January and immediately withdrew
without becoming bogged down in a protracted
firefight.
Another more successful
operation involving the same tactics and almost
certainly many of the same fighters followed on
January 6, 2012 near the district center of Rueso.
The latest attack also involved an estimated 30-50
insurgents targeting a Territorial Defense
Volunteers (TDV) outpost guarding a government
employment project.
The main assault group
used wire-cutters to break through perimeter
defenses and storm the facility with a range of
automatic weapons (including interestingly a
Minimi light machine gun and Uzi sub-machine guns
seized in the Ra-ngae attack one year earlier).
Two TDVs were killed in the room where
they were sleeping, while three others were
wounded but managed to flee into the darkness. The
attackers seized five assault rifles before
withdrawing. A second team, meanwhile, had cut
down trees to block the approach road while a
third staged a minor diversionary attack on a
police post some 800 meters from the main target.
Point-blank range In addition
to staging larger assaults aimed at seizing
ammunition and weapons, insurgent tactics have
also shifted in other ways which, while less
dramatic, reflect their same growing confidence
and boldness.
In 2011, daylight assaults
by groups of insurgents armed with assault rifles
and riding on the back of pick-up trucks increased
notably. Most of these attacks, launched at
point-blank range, targeted lightly-manned traffic
check points in Narathiwat. But one in March
involved guerrillas on two pick-ups opening fire
across the median divide of a major highway on a
convoy of military buses, wounding 22 marines
returning from leave.
Noteworthy, too,
have been a growing number of reports of targeted
killings carried out by insurgents on motorcycles
in which the shooter, riding pillion, uses an
assault rifle rather than an easily concealed
hand-gun. There has also been a marked increase in
hit-and-run attacks on army posts and police
stations using M-79 grenade launchers, now often
in daylight rather than by the cover of night.
In 2009, M-79s were used in only four
attacks during the whole year. By 2010, that
figure had risen to an average of 1.8 incidents
per month. In 2011, however, they were used on
average in four attacks each month. December 2011
saw the highest number of attacks using grenade
launchers of any month to date, where 13 of 17
attacks on security force posts involved M-79s.
Notwithstanding the analysis put forward
by some observers that the southern insurgency
remains a fragmented affair with no coherent
command structure, it seems highly unlikely this
pattern of events is unfolding by chance. It would
also be naive to give much credence to the
cheerful explanations often proffered by senior
police officers that major attacks are retaliatory
strikes by desperate insurgents and/or angry drug
dealers.
As Thai army sources point out,
the organizational structure of BRN-C's military
wing has long been configured for operations by
larger units. In recent years the emphasis on the
ground has been largely on establishing and
maintaining village-level RKK teams of six or
seven men. This has been reflected in press
coverage that has all but elevated the term RKK to
a separatist party in its own right.
But
on paper, at least, the BRN-C structure aims at
building larger units. In ascending order these
are 12-man sections or "regu" composed of
two RKK teams; 36-man platoons or "platong"
that group three "regu"; and finally
companies or "kompi" operating at a district level
and made up of three platoons or 108 fighters.
Developments in 2011 suggest efforts are
underway to give this military blueprint some
traction on the ground. There are arguably two
reasons for this. At the political level,
Bangkok's ongoing failure to tackle the roots of
Malay Muslim disaffection - official impunity, a
broken justice system and the need for
administrative reform - has allowed the insurgent
organization to continue to proselytize, recruit
and grow.
At the military level, most
notably in central Narathiwat, district commanders
are developing the command and control skills and
experience required for larger offensive
operations. This means the ability to concentrate
manpower for sudden attacks followed by the rapid
concealment of weapons and dispersal back into the
civilian population.
Strategic
dilemma For their part, Thai security
forces confront a classic counter-insurgency
dilemma. Given that the guerrillas remain mainly
community-based and focused on daily killings and
bombings, army strategy has necessarily been based
on area domination, spreading a net that sees
troops scattered in relatively small - and thus
vulnerable - units over a wide geographical area.
Such offensive operations as are conducted
usually entail raids on specific houses or
locations based on tip-offs and aim at arresting
or killing local commanders, or unearthing arms
caches. However, the security forces' overall
pattern of deployment is defensive and focused on
two main missions.
The first, which has
met with decidedly mixed success, is to ensure the
security of the civilian population and a
semblance of normality in the restive region. Each
day, thousands of armed personnel are tied down in
escorting teachers to and from state schools and
Buddhist monks on their alms collections - routine
daily activities that have proven vulnerable to
insurgent ambush. Others troops are out on foot
and vehicle patrols or standing at traffic
check-points. At night, thousands of soldiers,
police and volunteers are tied down guarding
schools, government offices, and their own
outposts (essentially surrendering the space
beyond to the insurgents).
The second,
related mission is to prevent the insurgent
political organization backed by its RKK enforcers
from taking over whole villages and setting up
parallel government structures - as occurred in
many villages during the period spanning
2003-2007.
So-called Peace Development
Units (Nuay Pattana Santi) have been on the
front-line of this effort. These 26-man joint
teams of Rangers, local Muslim TDVs and police are
embedded in villages where insurgent
infrastructure is assessed as still strong. Their
job is to win over locals through small-scale
development projects while at the same time
developing intelligence sources and attempting to
identify the insurgents' village-level political
committee members and RKK operatives.
This
pattern of widely scattered, penny-packet
defensive deployment inevitably creates
vulnerabilities, however. And as attacks in 2011
have shown, these increase dramatically when the
insurgents cease to operate in teams of four or
five and begin to concentrate in well-armed,
hard-hitting units of 20, 30 or even 50 fighters.
How far and at what speed insurgent combat
capabilities are likely to develop is difficult to
assess. The rebels face substantial constraints of
their own. The most obvious is the lead-time
required by perennially risk-averse commanders to
mount large-scale assaults involving platoon-size
units. Events in 2011 indicated the
reconnaissance, planning, and logistical
preparation required for a major attack takes
weeks or even months rather than days. And
insurgent attacks are never launched without a
very high probability of success.
Secondly, the insurgents are also
constrained by shortages of ammunition - although
paradoxically this factor increases the pressure
to mount more frequent large attacks aimed at
seizing more ammunition and arms. Nevertheless,
given the trajectory of conflict over 2011, the
risk of an intensification in the coming months is
real and could have repercussions at various
levels.
Militarily, it will demand a more
aggressive response from the security forces,
including probably a return to the large-scale
cordon-and-search operations seen in late 2007 and
early 2008 that involved round-ups of scores, and
before long, hundreds of detainees. This would do
nothing to win still skeptical Malay Muslim
hearts-and-minds; indeed a return to the strategy
would play directly into the hands of the
propaganda teams of the insurgents' political
wing.
A more robust counter-insurgency
effort could also derail military plans for the
new force structure in the border provinces which
is currently emerging. These plans envisage moving
regular RTA battalions from other regions of the
country back to their home bases and turning
counter-insurgency operations over to the recently
raised and locally-based 15th Division (part of
the southern 4th Army) which is backed importantly
by para-military Ranger regiments.
An
escalating conflict could also impact on the still
tentative process of contacts and dialogue between
government and army officials on one side and
representatives of BRN-C and the Patani United
Liberation Organization (PULO) on the other. In
abeyance since the elections of July 2011 and the
advent of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's
Puea Thai party-led government, talks are due to
begin again in early 2012 but are far from immune
to developments on the ground and perceptions of
each side's relative strength.
Indeed, far
from clear at present is whether escalating
insurgent operations are, as some observers have
suggested, a reflection of separatist frustration
over the lack of progress at the talks; or whether
BRN-C's political leaders and military commanders
are simply content to operate along essentially
independent - but not yet divergent - tracks. The
first half of 2012 may well provide an answer to
that question.
Anthony Davis is
a Bangkok-based security analyst for IHS-Jane's.
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