Free Republic

The Religion of Peace™ continued rampaging in southern Thailand today, killing innocent civilians and setting fire to schools, homes, and health offices—and Agence France Presse still won’t use the T word: Four killed in Thai south. " NARATHIWAT, Thailand (AFP) - Separatist militants have killed four people in attacks across Thailand’s restive south, police said Monday, while five schools were set ablaze in the region. One army ranger and one militant were killed in Narathiwat province late Sunday when Islamic insurgents raided an army base. Local police said about 10 militants opened fire on the base where 100 policemen and...

Suspected Muslim insurgents opened fire on nine Buddhists who were riding in a commuter van in Thailand's restive south Wednesday, killing all of them execution-style... The attack prompted officials to step up security in the south, where a Muslim insurgency has claimed more than 2,000 lives since 2004. Suspected insurgents bombed the van as it slowed into a curve in the road, which they also had blocked with a large tree trunk, said police Lt. Kitti Mankhong, a duty officer in the Yaha district of Yala province, where the attack occurred. Armed with assault rifles, the attackers first shot at...

Some are already calling it war, a brutal Muslim separatist insurgency in southern Thailand that has taken as many as 2,000 lives in three years, with almost- daily bombings, drive-by shootings, arson and beheadings. It is a conflict the government admits it is losing. [...] A new policy of conciliation pursued by Thailand's junta since it took power in a coup five months ago has been met by increased violence, including a barrage of 28 coordinated bombings in the south that killed or injured about 60 people a week ago. [...] "Buddhist monks have been hacked to death, clubbed to...

Islamic separatists could stage more "terrorist" attacks, Thailand has warned, after nine people were killed in overnight strikes as many Thais began celebrating the Lunar New Year. Thailand's army chief of staff said the insurgents, who have battled the government for three years in Muslim-majority provinces of southern Thailand, could try to stage new attacks during upcoming Buddhist holidays. "The violence may increase, and it will be the same kind of terrorist tactics," General Montri Sangkasap told reporters Monday after an emergency security meeting in Bangkok. Thailand's junta chief, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, and Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont had summoned military...

"When you pull the trigger, you've got to keep steady," the instructor sternly told the elementary school teachers. "If your hand is shaking you can't shoot." Teachers have one of the deadliest jobs in southern Thailand, with 44 killed by the bombs and bullets of an Islamic insurgency since 2004. So the teachers are learning how to shoot back. The Chulabhorn naval base... opened its heavily guarded gates on a recent Sunday to a training course for 100 public school teachers, mostly Buddhist men and women who say bringing a gun to school has become essential. "You'd never see a...