POTENTIAL HOT SPOTS: Thailand and al Qaeda
Items About Areas That Could Break Out Into War
January 9, 2004: Thai police believe the attacks last weekend in
three southern provinces (Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat) were organized
by an organization called Gerakan Mujahideen Islam Pattani (GMIP). It
is believed that this group received help from an Islamic radical
organization in neighboring Malaysia called KMM (Kampulan Mujahideen
Malaysia). Both organizations have ties to al Qaeda (via members who
were trained at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan or fought the Russian in
Afghanistan during the 1980s.) The GMIP attacks left four soldiers and
two policemen dead. Over a hundred rifles and pistols were stolen when
an army base was raided. Two bombs went off elsewhere, and another was
defused. Twenty schools were burned down. Five people have been
arrested, but the attackers disappeared after their attacks. The
attackers covered their faces, so witnesses were unable to provide
positive identification.
The degree of organization and skill demonstrated by the 60 or so
attackers makes these three provinces a battleground in the war
against Islamic terrorism. GMIP, like other al Qaeda groups, advocates
conversion of all non-Moslems and devotion to a particularly strict
form of Islam. Only about five percent of Thais are Moslem and nearly
all live in a few southern provinces bordering on largely Moslem
Malaysia. Islamic radicals are under attack in Malaysia, but still
maintain Islamic schools and fund raising organizations. GMIP and KMM
were both founded in 1995, as al Qaeda sought to set up Islamic
radical organizations all over the world.
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