Southern Discomfort; Bangkok's hunt for militants has local Muslims livid.(Thailand)

Byline: Joe Cochrane

Last week Sayant Khongton locked up his small grocery store for the last time. An unknown man on a motorcycle gunned down Khongton, who was also a local police officer, as he walked out the front door of his shop in the southern Thai town of Yala. He became the latest victim in a shadowy six-week campaign of murderous attacks against soldiers, police officers and other symbols of authority in Thailand's underdeveloped, Muslim-dominated south. No one seems to know who's behind it. "Take your pick," says one police intelligence official. "Disgruntled Muslims, separatists, foreign Islamic terrorists--you could make a case against any of them."

Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand's uber-confident prime minister, took office three years ago promising to resolve decades of anger and perceived injustice among the south's 1.8 million Muslims within his first three months in office. But since the violence erupted on Jan. 4, when dozens of gunmen simultaneously attacked a military camp and torched three police posts and 17 local schools in Narathiwat province, it's clear the situation in the south has gone from bad to worse. Not only have the attacks on police and military units continued, but there now appear to be retribution killings of Muslims as well. And Thaksin's heavy-handed pursuit of the perpetrators has many southerners feeling like targets.

Within hours of the Jan. 4 attacks, parts of Narathiwat and the majority-Muslim provinces of Yala and Pattani were under martial law. Thousands of Army soldiers and special forces have poured into the region. Authorities have arrested Muslim clerics on suspicion of murder, while soldiers have raided Islamic schools looking for weapons and suspects.

Thai intelligence sources say that a separatist group--or groups--numbering no more than a few hundred people is probably responsible for the death and destruction, which has claimed at least 15 lives. Clearly the Muslim community could be a vital ally in Bangkok's hunt for the militants. But so far all Thaksin's dragnet seems to be doing is alienating them. "Could going into [Islamic] schools with [trained] dogs, not taking off your shoes and arresting teachers be counterproductive?" one Western diplomat asks rhetorically. "Yes."

It's no surprise that ...