Posted on 09/29/2005 8:00:31 PM PDT by neverdem
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BANGKOK, Thailand -- A security adviser to the prime minister said Thursday that Indonesian fighters are involved in Thailand's Muslim insurgency, contradicting government insistence the bloody separatist movement is a homegrown affair unconnected to Southeast Asia's al-Qaida-linked terror network.
"I have warned the authorities concerned several times about Indonesian fighters sneaking into the region but they have ignored it," Gen. Kitti Rattanachaya told The Associated Press, saying the militants infiltrated from the Indonesian province of Aceh.
His assertion comes amid rumors of Indonesian Muslims joining the fight in Thailand's southernmost provinces. No substantial evidence has emerged to back the claim, and Rattanachaya gave few details of the infiltration. Most analysts regard the insurgency as domestic but with a strong potential to attract foreign Muslim militants - including members of the Jemaah Islamiyah network, blamed for deadly attacks including the 2002 Bali bombings and a 2003 blast at Jakarta's J.W. Marriott hotel.
In a recent AP interview, a veteran Thai rebel leader warned that militants from Indonesia and Arab nations might join the Thai fight for a separate Muslim homeland if the government continued a crackdown that is provoking a new generation of fighters.
Lukman B. Lima said the 21-month-old insurgency is getting moral and financial support from abroad, especially from Islamic sympathizers in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia. But he said weapons are being obtained locally and wielded by Thai Muslims.
"I assure you that many among the young generation are being trained to use the weapons to defend themselves. We train them in the mountains, jungles and sometimes in villages but only inside Thailand," Lukman said in a Sept. 23 interview.
The government repeatedly has denied there are rebel training camps in Thailand.
More than 1,000 people - including moderate Muslims, Buddhist villagers, policemen and government officials - have been killed since early 2004, when a centurylong struggle for an independent state in three Muslim-dominated provinces reignited.
Kitti, a security adviser to Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and former army commander in the restive region, said officials "don't accept the truth that we are facing the problem of separatist insurgents supported by fellow Muslims in the region."
Also Thursday, Thaksin dismissed local media reports that Washington was concerned about international militants joining with Thai Muslims. The Thai-language daily Matichon said U.S. Ambassador Ralph Boyce met with the interior minister recently to ask about possible foreign involvement.
"Not true. I don't believe the report (of foreign militants) is true because even when I met with President Bush he did not bring this up," Thaksin told reporters when asked about the meeting.
Thaksin met Bush in Washington earlier this month.
Boyce told AP: "We still view the situation as homegrown."
In another interview earlier this week, a Thai Muslim who fought with the mujahedeen in Afghanistan and who has close contacts with the Thai insurgents said he believed fighters from Aceh with superior training have been operating in southern Thailand for some time.
Thai insurgents, mostly recruited from religious school and given just rudimentary training, were not good enough to carry out some of the attacks witnessed in the south, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity out of concerns for his safety.
There have been centuries of contact between the Muslims of Aceh and southern Thailand, with only the Straits of Malacca to separate them. Indonesian government troops are now withdrawing from the province following a peace accord to end a separatist rebellion that erupted in 1976.
Of course they are. Thailand, like anywhere a Muslim ever takes a dump, is holy Islamic land.
I'm not going to say please much longer.
We backed Thailand before and we will again.
Red6
"We backed Thailand before and we will again."
Yea, but backing Thailand is not enough. That's like trying to put a band-aid on a severed leg. There is nobody in Washington with the 'nads to admit that we are at war with islam. And until that admission comes, we will never begin to win the WOT.
The MSM will ignore it. They are so intellectual, with their heads and noses so high up that they can't see planet earth anymore.
We are in a global war against radical Islam! It's a matter of FACT and some, living in their secular world don't want to see it.
Sudan civil war
Iraq insurgency
Israel terrorism
Thailand insurgency
Philippines (http://library.nps.navy.mil/home/tgp/asc.htm or http://cfrterrorism.org/groups/abusayyaf.html )
Libya terrorism
Afghanistan terrorism and former Taliban regime.
Kyrgyzstan terrorism
Southern Egypt terrorism (http://www.usdivetravel.com/T-EgyptTerrorism.html , what the Egyptians won’t tell you )
Iran Hamas state sponsored terror
Syria sponsors terror
Indonesia sponsors insurgency
The terror in Madrid, London, Van Gogh, 9-11, USS Cole, Kobar Towers, US Embassies, Pearl, Moscow theater, Russian train bomb, assassination of Chechen President, Russian plane hijackings........ WTC in 1993…..
What do they all share?
Red6
Well,
One can only hope. If we don't fight this war, we will loose, and many who are against Iraq, Afghanistan etc have NO IDEA what is at stake if we were to loose.
The liberal likes to use the word “paradigm”. If we loose he will understand the true meaning of a shift in paradigm!
Red6
AFAIK they haven't asked for assistance and I don't believe they ever will. They are in a state of denial, pretending that this terror campaign is the work of a few locals or 'criminal elements'.
Look at this quote from P.M. Thaksin: "Not true. I don't believe the report (of foreign militants) is true because even when I met with President Bush he did not bring this up, Thaksin told reporters when asked about the meeting.". So absurd - so typically Thai....
There was was a great analysis of the situation there by expatguy posted a few days ago.
The Thais are not in a 'state of denial'. They know full well what is happening and are more than capable of handling it themselves. They do not need Washington's help.
Look at this quote from P.M. Thaksin: "Not true. I don't believe the report (of foreign militants) is true because even when I met with President Bush he did not bring this up, Thaksin told reporters when asked about the meeting.". So absurd - so typically Thai....
Toxin does not speak for the guys on the ground in the south. I am personal friends with a large number of police special operations guys that have put in a lot of years in the south of Thailand. Toxin is a talking head and that is all. His opinion, or words, have no bearing on reality.
Oh, sure. A PM with a huge majority in Parliament and one of the richest guys in the world is just the 'talking head'. Well, if your buddies have the real power, it would be nice to see them exercise it and get things under control.
IIRC, TRT has about a 60% majority in Parliament. This is a bit misleading since his party is starting to implode on itself. Toxin is a bit like Bill Clinton but without the charm. That lack of charm is starting to cause him huge problems.
As for the south, one of the few things Toxin has done properly is sign the emergency decree a few months ago. This finally gave the police and military the power they need to go after people. Prior to this, they had their hands tied and there was not much that could be done. This has changed the situation rather dramatically.
If this is a ping, why?
He does not want this to lose visibility. Rightfully so, it's a perfect example of the whole concept Bush was trying to demonstrate with the Cold War-Fundamentalist Islamic threat similarities.
The issues faced by Thailand are but one more proof of this much bigger issue we have today with radical Islamists. The threat spans from Iraq to Afghanistan to New York to Thailand, the Philippines with Abu Saaef (An Islamist militant organization) and even into Europe itself (London, France, Madrid, Van Gogh).
Only the latter “choose” to ignore the threat. They downplay it, call it “disenfranchised youths” or whatever else; but in reality they are just paralyzed and weak and best described as impotent. Rumsfeld had it right when he called them, “Old Europe”. Maybe it hurt so bad because he was on to something? They hope that “somehow” the threat will just magically go away by itself, kind of like the Soviet Union which stated it will “burry them” (Khrushchev). And to some degree they are right in thinking so-
In the end even this is similar to the “Cold War”. It will be American men that bleed, American tax payers that pay, and American politicians who will be slandered in Europe and elsewhere, as Reagan was (That “Sebelrastler”). Of course today, the enlightened intellectual European will never give a Reagan any credit for bringing down that wall. Just as Bush (The “Cowboy”) will never get credit for diminishing the Islamic threat in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Philippines, and elsewhere.
So why does he ping it? Because it’s part of a much bigger picture. It is part of the “real” and “bigger” picture out there not captured by the news of the minute, the sensationalist star who makes a popularity stunt.
Question?
Did the media portray Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Angola, Afghanistan, the backing of Thailand against the Khmer Rouge, the Berlin Airlift as individual events in time or as a much bigger war against the Warsaw Pact? Was the Cold War really so “cold”?
This is actually important not only in and of itself, but because it so well shows the greater threat, the bigger picture. Something the anti-war pundit in Europe, some in our government, or nearly anyone in the MSM wants to desperately overlook.
Red6
You obviously don't like Thaksin or Toxin very much.
I don't personally know much about him other than some things seem to be going right now in Thailand.
Toxin....LOL.....I like it!
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