Thai Muslim separatists step up fight: Army

Thai Muslim separatists step up fight: Army

HAT YAI, Thailand (AFP): Inspired by recent actions by rebel fighters in the Philippines and Indonesia, Muslim separatists in southern Thailand have stepped up their campaign of violence, Thai military sources said on Friday.

Thai Muslim separatists have been a lot more active in the past six months as they are "inspired by Muslim groups in Indonesia and even the Philippines," Lt. Gen. Narong Den-Udom, commander of the fourth army southern division, told reporters in this southern city.

"We have analyzed the situation and we agreed that it could be caused by recent Muslim movements in these countries," he said. "Since mid-November there has been much more fighting" between the army and the rebels, he said.

Since November 1999, there have been 13 clashes between the separatists and the army, resulting in the deaths of 15 rebels and one soldier, a sharp rise from previous years.

The separatists also have been targeting government officials in revenge attacks, Narong said.

There are two main groups of Thai separatists, the Pattani United Liberation Organization (PULO) and Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), in the predominantly Muslim south.

Both groups are fighting for an autonomous or independent Muslim region, which would be comprised of the five districts in Yala and Pattani provinces, the areas closest to the Malaysian border.

After bloody clashes in the late 1970s, several other larger separatist groups laid down their arms and stopped fighting the Thai government in the 1980s, after being promised amnesties and economic development.

In the 1970s, southern Muslim separatist groups could count on more than 1,000 active fighters, Narong said. The Thai army now believes the remaining separatists have only 60-80 active combatants.

Thailand must address continuing economic problems in the south, a region which is far poorer than the area around Bangkok, if the country's is ever going to completely wipe out the last remnants of the region's insurgent movement, Narong said.

"The violence by Muslim separatists will not be over unless we can solve economic issues (in the south), so that local people do not give assistance to separatists" out of desperation, he said.