South-East Asia security analyst Zachary Abuza has an op-ed piece in today’s SMH about the predominantly Indonesian terror group Jemaah Islamiah, prompted by the recent capture of it’s amir, Abu Dujana. In the final paragraph he mentions the escalating conflict in Southern Thailand, stating that although JI have not been actively involved in that confict, “it will be drawn in” and that Indonesians have increasingly been arrested in the zone. There are also signs of influence from further abroad. Due to recent developments there and the huge number of Australian tourists that visit Thailand, this issue could soon become of primary importance for Australia. Here’s a summary of the situation and developments this year in particular, also from Zachary Abuza, written for the Jamestown Foundation:

The first five months of 2007 have seen a dramatic increase in both the lethality and brutality of the Thai insurgency, prompting numerous Thai military officials to suspect the growing presence of foreign trainers. The arrest of an Indonesian on May 19 further raised suspicions. Nevertheless, Thai political leaders, including former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, head of the National Reconciliation Commission Khun Anand Panyarachun and current Prime Minister General Surayud Chulanont, along with the diplomatic community, have all insisted that the insurgency is a purely domestic affair with no foreign linkages. This view is being challenged by a growing body of evidence that shows that Thai officials have begun to speak more openly about the influence of foreigners on the Thai insurgents.

After three years of insurgency that has left some 2,200 people dead, militants have dramatically increased the tempo of attacks in 2007. The insurgents are clearly buoyed by their own successes, as well as the lackluster performance of the Thai security services. Moreover, the attacks this year have been far more provocative in various ways. At the political level, there have been three attacks on the Thai royal family or their entourage. At a more local level, beheadings, machete attacks and desecration of corpses have become more frequent. There have been 10 beheadings in 2007, one-third of the total number. Nearly as many people have been killed by machete attacks or have been bludgeoned to death. In dozens of cases, the bodies have been set on fire, and in one instance a female victim was burnt alive.

Targeting has also been more brutal—women, children and monks, people who would never have been targeted in earlier iterations of the Thai insurgency, are now systematically gunned down. In a shocking case that occurred in mid-March and was reminiscent of the carnage of Algeria or Kashmir, a minivan was disabled by an IED and all 10 passengers, including three women and a girl, were shot execution style (Terrorism Focus, April 24). IEDs have also grown in size and complexity. It took insurgents almost two years to develop IEDs larger than five kilograms. This year has already witnessed 15 and 20 kilogram devices used several times a week, causing much higher casualty rates, especially among police and soldiers. Many of the devices are similar to the one found and defused on May 28: a 20 kilogram ammonium nitrate bomb constructed in a fire extinguisher, stuffed with bolts, nuts and pieces of rebar and hidden on the side of the road awaiting an army convoy (Bernama, May 28). The bomb was command detonated, but cell phone detonators are still currently used. Casio watches, which have been used routinely in Iraq, are now also regularly employed in southern Thailand.

There is a possibility that exogenous factors are at play.

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Thai military intelligence officials interviewed by this author believe that there are Middle Eastern trainers involved in the insurgency, based on the fact that the IED technology has improved so rapidly. They tend to dismiss the notion that such technology was available through the internet.
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The veteran Middle East journalist Amir Taheri wrote in a March 2006 article in Asharq al-Awsat that “international jihadist circles” on the internet and across the Muslim world were discussing the possibility of waging a broader jihad in southern Thailand. He stated, “The buzz in Islamist circles is that well-funded jihadist organizations may be preparing a takeover bid for the southern Thailand insurgency.” There exists a potential for bleed-out from Iraq. As the Thai insurgency drags on (and it shows no signs of slowing), its profile will be raised in the consciousness of Muslims around the world, and it may attract more attention and funding.

Note that the dramatic increase in violence pretty much started since the coup last September, when the Thai military disposed of then Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, after a very brief wait-and-see-who’s-in-change lull. Thaksin favoured a tough approach against the insurgents, while the leader of the junta that took power, Army Commander General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, who is a Muslim, favoured negotiations, but claimed he can’t find anyone to negotiate with. General Sonthi’s soft approach has clearly been at least in part responsible for the emboldened mood of the insurgents.

The conflict zone is but a couple of hours drive away from major tourists spots, frequented by many thousands of Australians every year. It is growing in brutality, the sophistication and boldness of the attacks is increasing, as is the range of tactics used. If Middle East terror groups (and even JI) get involved, if they are not already, it is only a matter of time before Thailand begins to see suicide attacks. And it can already only be a matter of time before tourists become targets, most likely after the Thai army changes to a tougher approach (there are signs that they already are). It is not a remote possibility that the next attack that kills Australians on the scale of Bali will be in Thailand. Security in the tourists areas is relatively weak, the current government has been unable to effective consolidate power after the coup and remains unstable, with continuous rumours of another coup being in the works in Bangkok, as the junta is in serious disagreement with the interim Prime Minister. As the government and military continue to be preoccupied with their power plays, the potential for an international disaster in the South is growing and Australia should be taking note. This will not remain a domestic Thai issue for much longer, despite wishful thinking and reassuring words from Bangkok.

Shiv Malik went into the Beeston ghetto in Leeds to do research for a BBC documentary on the lives of the four 7/7 bombers, 3 of whom were from Beeston. What he found was a self-isolated Pakistani community in which a large proportion of the secondg eneration, having become alienated from the traditionalism of their parents, but unable to integrate into British society, found a spiritual home in the transnational Islamist movement of the Salafi-Jihadists.

After months of digging around and still unable to find anyone willing to honestly talk to him Shiv found out about Khan’s cabbie brother and took a couple of cab rides with him. Then finally more information was forthcoming from other sources and Shiv was able to piece together the story of Khan’s gradual radicalisation that finally led him to become a suicide bomber.

Serious problems started in Beeston some ten year ago, when the whole neighbourhood became increasingly infested with drugs. The community did not know how to deal with it. Then a group of second-generation Pakistanis emerged, known as the Mullah boys, who became a vigilante community work squad. They would forcibly take drug-addicted Pakistani youths off the street and detox them. Mohammad Sidique Khan was a part of this group and was looked up to in the community. But as the group’s religiousity increased so did their militancy. Meanwhile Khan came into conflict with his family over his Salafism and his choice of girlfriend, who was from a different sect (she was Deobandi, which is similar to Wahhabism, while his family was Berelvi, which is a type of Sufism). Read the rest of this disturbing story here.

You probably won’t be surprised to know, by the way, the documentary was never made. The BBC deemed the script to be too “Anti-Muslim”. Reality has become too anti-Muslim to talk about in Britain.

One other random fact that jumped out at me in the article:

Among those who study British race relations, there’s an informal theory that states that 30 years after the establishment of any sizeable ethnic minority community, there will be riots.

I wonder how the theory translates to other countries? The last 10 years has seen a level of migration all over the world unprecedented in human history, particularly into the First World. And 20-30 years from now will coincide with the West’s catastrophic demographic slump, which is likely to decimate a number of Western economies. I think Europe in particular is going to be seeing bigger trouble than just riots.

Stratfor reporting on the case of some Russian multinational employees that were kidnapped by Nigerian militants last week (subscription only), in hope of gaining a ransom payout:

The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Nigeria’s ambassador June 4 to discuss the June 3 kidnapping of six Russian employees of giant Russian aluminum producer United Company RUSAL in the Niger Delta. Thus far, the many militant groups in the Delta region have shown no regard for country of origin when kidnapping foreign residents. But this is the first time Russians have been kidnapped in the Niger Delta, and Russia is not likely to respond as other countries have to this common militant practice.

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Consistent with its past dealings with armed groups that kidnap Russians, someone in the employ of either the Kremlin or RUSAL will retaliate against the individuals who participated in the kidnapping — or, should the attackers be affiliated with some larger organization, against other individuals in the organization. In September 1985, Hezbollah militants abducted four employees of the Soviet Embassy in Beirut. The KGB’s response to the kidnapping was to carry out reprisal kidnappings of several family members of the suspected Lebanese abductors and to send them back home in pieces. A few days later, the Soviets were released — unlike U.S. hostages kidnapped in Lebanon, some of whom remained in captivity for years.

Whatever the Russian response to the Niger Delta kidnappings, the desired effect will be to deter future attacks against Russian businesses and citizens. And any reprisal likely will happen after RUSAL has paid for the safe release of its employees.

There’s a lesson in there somewhere for all of us.

Pommygranate has posted a fantastic report on Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s presentation at the Sydney Recital Hall last Sunday night. Inspirational stuff.

That page of course only has room for one… But thats later.

The geopolitical gurus at Stratfor make the following analysis of the ongoing negotiations between the US and Iran (subscription only):

Iran handed over a proposal to [U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan] Crocker during a brief encounter at the May 5-6 Sharm el-Sheikh summit in Egypt, but also chose to unofficially publicize its terms for Iraq through the Saudi-owned, British-based daily Al Hayat. The Iranian Foreign Ministry likely chose Al Hayat, a major Arab news outlet, to make a back-channel broadcast of what concessions it is prepared to make to allay Sunni concerns in the region.

In sum, this Iranian proposal called for a non-rushed withdrawal and relocation of U.S. troops to bases inside Iraq, a rejection of all attempts to partition Iraq, a commitment by the Sunni bloc to root out the jihadists and acknowledgement by Washington that the Iranian nuclear file cannot be uncoupled from the Iraq negotiations. In return, Iran would rein in the armed Shiite militias, revise the de-Baathification law and Iraqi Constitution to double Sunni political representation, create a policy to allow for the fair distribution of oil revenues (particularly to the Sunnis) and use its regional influence to quell crises in areas such as Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories.

The terms put forth by the Iranians are so close to the U.S. position on Iraq that, with little exception, they could have been printed on State Department stationary and no one would have noticed the difference. If these are the terms Washington and Tehran are in fact discussing, then we are witnessing an extraordinary turn in the Iraq war in which the U.S. and Iranian blueprints for Iraq are finally aligning. It does not surprise us, then, that Crocker said after his meeting in Baghdad that the Iranian position “was very close to our own” at the level of policy and principle.

Extraordinary indeed. So is this finally a light at the end of tunnel? Maybe, except for a few small problems. Stratfor lists the problems as follows:

• The transnational Sunni Jihadists with their dreams of an Islamic State of Iraq
• the severely and perhaps irreconcilably split Iraqi Shia who are likely to a little rough on each other sooner rather than later
• the much less splintered Iraqi Sunnis, who, although by and large online with these negotiations must be satisfied of their future safety and a slice of the pie in the Shia dominated Iraq (these guarantees are already part of the deal)
• the Iraqi Kurds, who are the Iraqi faction that stands to lose most out of the above settlement and are not about to give up what they’ve worked so hard to finally achieve in Kurdistan
• Ultraconservatives in Washington and Tehran who “can’t negotiate with those people”
• Sunni Regional Powers with that whole Shia Crescent thing on their mind
• Syria, who is feeling pretty important, if not immune right now while the Great Satan is all tied up elsewhere and they are useful to Iran
• Russia, which has really been making the best of the US and Iranian preoccupation in Iraq and would be quite unhappy to have to start caring what the Americans (and even the much closer Iranians) think again

How is that light looking now?