Thailand: International Terrorism and the Muslim South

Abstract

When the Iraq war started in March 2003, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra quickly declared Thailand's neutrality because he did not want to upset the estimated six million-strong Thai Muslim community living in southern Thai land. After his stand was reported by the international media, he had second thoughts. In May 2003 he reversed his position and pledged full support for the U.S. war effort in Iraq, saying that Thailand is one of the five U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific region and was obliged under the Thai-U.S. defence treaty to help the United States. Such flip-flopping was not uncommon during the first three years of his premiership. Before the start of the Iraq war, Thaksin consistently denied the existence of terrorist cells inside Thailand. After the 11 September 2001 terror attacks in the United States and the Bali bombing in October 2002, numerous foreign reports claimed that groups of terrorists with links to the regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), and, by extension, Al-Qaeda had passed through Thailand. For almost ten months after the carnage in Bali, the Thai government was tight-lipped on the issue of terrorism. Thaksin dismissed these reports as groundless, saying they were the work of crazy reporters. However, in the later half of 2003, Thaksin and the Thai military leaders started to admit that some international terrorists might have visited Thailand while in transit or possibly even stayed in the country to regroup. This article focuses on Thailand's policy towards international terrorism following the September 11 attacks as well as the implications of these policies on the Muslim-dominated southern provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, and Yala.