War On Terror – Southern Thailand

Have you ever wondered how terrorists are recruited?  How are they turned into suicide bombers?  Now, thanks to a recent report by the International Crisis Group, we get a better understanding of the recruitment methodology used by terrorists.

Many of us do not understand fully the issues involved in the fighting in Southern Thailand, where Muslims are fighting to secede from the Buddhist Thailand. The International Crisis Group report says that Thai Muslim insurgents rely on Muslim teachers to find promising Muslim students who feel that they are being treated as second class citizens in their own country.

Once these promising Muslim students are identified, they are invited by their Islamic schools to join “extracurricular indoctrination programs.” Said the report: “Recruiters invite those who seem promising devout Muslims of good character who are moved by a history of oppression, mistreatment and the idea of armed jihad to join extracurricular indoctrination programs in mosques or disguised as football training.”

The next step is to get these young people to join a clandestine, multi-cell network.  To do so, these promising students have to swear an oath of commitment and secrecy.  Following that, they are then given basic weapon traning.  Upon completion of this training, they become rebel foot soldiers who are responsible for the almost daily drive-by assassinations carried by by gunmen riding in pairs on motorcycles in Southern Thailand.

So Muslim schools in Southern Thailand are the initial point of contact between Muslim teachers and promising Muslim students. Many of the Muslim teachers studied in the Middle East and in Pakistan. Some Thai Muslims also trained and fought with the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. It is no wonder therefore to find these Muslims in Southern Thailand having both bomb making and guerrilla warfare skills.

How does the Thai Government view this insurgency? Well, the authorities view these Islamic schools as breeding grounds for militants.  Thai authorities have identified several suspected leaders of the insurgency.

But what can the Thai authorities do about this?  Analyst Sidney Jones from  the International Crisis Group suggests that undercover monitoring of Friday prayers at mosques where recruitment is known to have taken place and training local community leaders to be on the look out for recruitment activities in their neighborhoods will go a long way in combating terrorism in Southern Thailand.

Think about it.  Should schools be the brreeding grounds for terrorists?  Should innocent young students be recruited and indoctrinated to such an extent that they are prepared to die as suicide bombers?  Should teachers be recruiters for terrorist networks?

Earlier posts

War On Terror – Who Is A Terrorist?
Hate Speech During Ramadan – To Monitor Or Not?
Ritualistic Or Religious?
Sucide Bombers – Are They Also Victims?