A carefully coordinated series of bomb attacks struck southern Thailand today. According to the AP:
Nearly two dozen bombs exploded almost simultaneously Thursday inside commercial banks in southern Thailand, killing two people in a region bloodied by a Muslim insurgency, police said.
The homemade bombs, which were triggered by mobile phone signals, were placed in garbage bins, at newspaper stands and near seats where customers wait for service in the banks in Yala province, said Maj. Gen. Paithoon Choochaiya who heads the provincial police. At least 28 people were injured.
Authorities said two suspects were detained. A review of close-circuit video showed that some of the explosives were planted by women, police said.
Some of the apparently small devices were hidden in women’s handbags or inside books carried by teenagers in school uniforms, said Lt. Gen. Ongkorn Thongprasom, the army chief in the south.
Some of the targets were “Islamic” banks; i.e. those which charge no interest. For some reason they were not exempt from the attacks.
There’s more in the Bangkok Post:
Such simultaneous terrorist attacks in the deep South, where more than 1,300 people have died from violence over the past two and a half years, have become increasingly common as the region’s separatist movement attempts to demonstrate its unity and resilience, authorities said.
It’s important to remember that the “separatist movement” — the media’s preferred term — in the south of Thailand is an attempt by Islamic terrorists to wrest control from the central government in Bangkok.
The Bangkok Post provides some background:
Thailand’s deep South has been gripped by a simmering separatist movement for decades. The area, once an independent Islamic sultanate called Pattani, was first conquered by Bangkok in 1786 but only came under the direct rule of the Thai bureaucracy in 1902.
Pattani’s separatist struggle has been fuelled by the local population’s sense of religious and cultural alienation from the predominantly Buddhist Thai state. More than 80 per cent of the 2 million people in the three-province region describe themselves as Muslims.
80% Muslim is an ominously large percentage. If southern Thailand is like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Yemen, Iraq, Palestine, and other predominantly Islamic areas, a de facto ethnic cleansing will soon occur, as non-Muslims flee to other areas before they are killed. This is what I have previously called the “Islamic ratchet”, the process whereby countries which pass a critical mass of Muslim population become increasingly Muslim, until all others are driven out, converted, or killed.
Commenter Ik has given us these statistics for the Muslim population in the Indian subcontinent:
| Country | 1947 | 2001 | ||
| Pakistan | 80% | 98%-99% | ||
| Bangladesh | 60% | 90% | ||
| India | 7% | 15% |
Notice the virtual disappearance of Hindus from Pakistan. But India has not ethnically cleansed itself of Muslims. In fact, their population has increased, presumably as Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh leave their economically dysfunctional homelands to look for work in the Indian powerhouse.
It seems that southern Thailand will go the way of Bangladesh, and become an independent and impoverished Islamic statelet. The wretched poor of the new country will tug at the world’s heartstrings, and the UN and its NGOs will descend on the victims with “aid”. The Islamic Republic of Pattani will become Palestine-on-the-Malacca-Strait.
We have some experts on Thailand among our readers. Anyone want to weigh in with additional information?
I have seven words for the Thais about the Pattanis:
“Let them go and let them rot.”
I’m no expert, but I’ve worked and stayed there. I think the dissolution of Thailand is unstoppable – just look at a map. The southern province is a hell of a lot closer to Malaysia than to Bangkok (the only big city). They are even more remote culturally and politically.
Thailand survived uncolonized (alone of all the countries in SE Asia) by knowing when to cut its losses. It used to be a lot bigger, but it stayed independant. They will probably be forced to the Bangladesh solution. They may have to build a wall, though – it’s not far to Phuket – the most important tourism center.
In the meantime, the Thai political leadership is clueless and ineffective on this issue – ranging from brutal and blundering local cops to wishy-washy national leaders – remember the ludicrous paper crane airdrop?
Wally Ballou: “They may have to build a wall, though”
You forgot the word “apartheid”. If it’s a wall stopping Muslim suicide-bombers, it’s called an apartheid wall. Please remember that, or you’ll be sent to moonbat reeducation camp forthwith.
/sarcasm (yeah, like it wasn’t clear…)
Wally Ballou: “In the meantime, the Thai political leadership is clueless and ineffective on this issue”
That’s not a thing to write about. Now if there were any political leadership in the world fully cognizant of the issue and willing to go the whole hog (or even Piglet) in taking care of it, THAT would be newsworthy.
To ZSG: Trouble is they don’t rot, they ask for more to remake in their image.
Surely you are mistaken, Baron Bodissey. The Hindu fundamentalist Indian state recently murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims in Gujarat, and has deployed millions of troops in Kashmir who kill billions of innocent civilians and freedom-fighters there. Thank God for the existence of the righteous democratic state of Pakistan which, as a responsible power, maintains a nuclear balance in the subcontinent, and continues o provide moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri freedom fghters.
Wow…
I’m truly amazed that the world failed to notice the murder of billions of people. At least we have that great stabilizing force of Pakistan, our trusty ally who is above the fray, to keep the region free from any sort of terrorism!
Mihir —
I see in your profile that you live in India. I’m curious: does anyone actually buy into that nonsense in India, or are the Islamists pretty much all in Pakistan? (Clearly you can see I know virtually nothing but the basics about the situation – typical narcissistic American – but I’m trying to learn, so that counts for something right?)
david, Our establishment right from the time of independence ended up in leftist-liberal hands. Nehru was a fabian socialist and under his patronage much more virulent and nasty forms of socialist viruses infiltrated and grew in the nourishing environment.
That kind of crap u r referring to and mihir sarcastically wrote about is dished on a daily basis by our crap media.
Is there a silver lining somewhere. short of guilloting all those of the leftist persuasion from all over the world i think there is no solution. They are just eating away at the vitals of all our societies and they should be stopped pronto or else the world as we know it is finished. The world will soon descend into a new barbarian dark ages from which it will be impossible to get out of.
Thank you for the info.
Honestly, what I think it will come down to is war across Europe – in which Russia will get involved, finally seeing their chance to reclaim their glory days – which we will eventually win, and finally, after tens of millions dead and cities destroyed, the world will finally wake up and not tolerate this nonsense anymore.