Thailand - Islamic Terrorists Losing Their Base

A surge in terror attacks earlier this month, apparently carried out by as few as four men, may have been in response to the growing failure of the terrorist effort to coerce businesses to stay closed on Fridays. Some 90 percent did on the 5th, the first day of the terrorist effort to enforce this demand. But a week later only 70 percent closed and week by week more stores remained open on Fridays. The terrorists were not able to launch more attacks, or realized that public opinion, especially among Moslems, was against them in this endeavor. The government put a lot more soldiers and police in the markets and offered some financial incentives for merchants who opened on Friday. Overall, the terrorist violence is down, and when it does occur it tends to be in brief bursts of intense violence.

After a spike in attacks against schools and teachers last month, such activity sharply declined. The Islamic terror groups face a growing problem from the Moslem population they say they are fighting for. The Thai Moslems don’t want the secular schools closed, the shops shut on Fridays, and their Buddhist neighbors driven away. Eight years of terrorism has produced no benefits for the southern Moslems and, although more autonomy is still a popular cause, the Islamic terrorists are now seen as more of a problem than a solution. While the number of Islamic terrorists and supporters may be declining, there is still a hard core who are determined to keep up the violence until they are killed. That could take years.

October 12, 2012: In the south two separate attacks against Buddhists left two dead and one wounded.

October 10, 2012: In the last two days there was a burst of Islamic terrorism, which left twelve dead in five attacks. Most of the dead were Buddhists.

October 5, 2012: In the south many shops heeded threats from Islamic terrorists and stayed closed on Friday (the Moslem day of prayer). Merchants who stayed opened were threatened with attack, but there were no attacks against those stores that did open. Many shoppers stayed home, just in case.