Islam.
Thai Forces Kill 93 Attackers in Clashes in South (Update1)
April 28 (Bloomberg) -- Thai soldiers and police killed at least 93 people who attacked police stations, checkpoints and government offices in three southern provinces in an attempt to steal weapons, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said.
The incidents, in which six security officials also died, started at dawn today in 10 areas of Yala province, 1,100- kilometers (680 miles) south of Bangkok and in nearby Pattani and Songkhla provinces. Thaksin said he will go ahead with a planned visit to the area next week.
While the provinces involved are Muslim-majority, the attacks weren't religiously motivated, Thaksin told reporters at Government House. The attackers were linked to those people killed four soldiers in a raid on an army base to steal weapons in nearby Narathiwat province in January, he said.
``There are some young Thai Buddhists among the dead attackers, showing it's not a religious conflict as suggested by some,'' Thaksin said. ``They were dressed and used similar tactics as in the January attack.'' The number of dead attackers may rise to 100, he said.
Thailand, where more than 90 percent of people are Buddhists, imposed martial law in January in Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat after the first attack. Violence in the area has killed more than 60 people since then, excluding today's toll.
Eight attackers, six of them wounded, were caught by security forces, police General Prung Bunphadung said in a live interview on television Channel 3. Officials will investigate the attackers to try to explain their motives, Thaksin said.
Five policemen and one soldier died in the attacks, Prung said. Channel 3 said skirmishes were still taking place in some of the affected areas six hours after the start of the attacks.
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000080&sid=aMbbWUBC1BRE&refer=asiaPattani, Yala and Narathiwat are the only Muslim majority provinces in predominantly Buddhist Thailand. Muslims there have long complained of discrimination in jobs and education. Boo hoo hoo. Muslims endlessly complain about discrimination but wherever they take control they discriminate, and increasingly persecute, non-Muslims and even Muslims who don't agree with them.
They also say their culture and language are being subjugated by the Buddhist Thais, and cite as an example the state schools, which teach in Thai language. Muslims in the south speak Yawi, a dialect of Malay, spoken in the neighboring Malaysia.
Boo hoo hoo. They're a small minority, but a pain in the you know where. Move to Malaysia. Funny thing, in Malaysia, the largely non-Muslim Chinese and Indians are nearly half the population but they are discriminated against in various ways and Islam is the favored religion.