http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2011...-30149312.html

Drug rings may be behind South insurgency

By The Nation
Published on February 23, 2011


Drug dealers and influential mafia bosses are said to be funding the insurgency and attacks in the deep South, including the most recent car bombings, an analysis by the Fourth Army Area commander Lt-General Udomchai Thammasarorat showed.

"They have also heightened their operations in response to extensive suppression by security forces and civilian authorities, and are on purpose showing off their potential to discourage those who want to lay down their arms, while boosting the morale of active insurgents," he said.

Udomchai concurred with a theory that the increase in violence was meant to draw the attention of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and get it to intervene.

"They want to show [to the OIC] that the situation is beyond control, that security officials cannot save or protect civilians," he added.

The number of attacks has risen in defiance of the authorities' success with the scheme in which insurgents are pardoned if they surrender. Since October, up to 100 insurgents have turned themselves in. "More and more of them will come and surrender, through a scheme that is secretly underway," he added.

Previously known for supporting and funding insurgency, drugs trafficking gangs are now backing attacks either in retaliation or undermine security operations targeting the drug trade. Last Sunday, police broke up a drug ring in Pattani's Yaring district and seized 64,000 amphetamine tablets, and earlier it had seized 96,000 tablets and Bt200,000 in cash from another trafficker.

Maj-General Phaithoon Choochaiya, who commands police operations in the entire South, said security officials were the obvious targets in last week's first two bomb attacks - an indication that drug traffickers were influential in planning and selecting targets for the insurgents to aim at. In the second attack on February 13, a drug ring helped insurgents evade security officials.

The first car bombing on February 13 wounded 17 people, the second on February 17 wounded another 17, while the latest attack on Monday killed one woman and wounded 17 others.