Insurgents focus ire on local defence volunteers

Army's 'Thung Yang Daeng Model' is under pressure after militants 'send 'warning'

Don Pathan
Special to The Nation

Ban Pulea, Yala __Shortly after midnight on Friday, a group of about 30 insurgents attacked a small security outpost run by a local Defence Volunteer (DV) unit in Yala's Yaha district.

Eighteen of the DVs were left injured, six seriously, after nearly 30 minutes of gunfire and grenade attacks.

DV camp in Yala's Yaha district. Photo by: DON PATHAN

Local residents said it wasn't much of a fight as the DVs either fled or lay flat on their stomachs in the bamboo hut where they had been sleeping. Bullet holes and damage from the M79 grenades also suggest it was a one-way battle. The militants made off with seven government-issued weapons.

Nevertheless, villagers in the area expressed surprise at the fact that the Malay Muslim insurgents had launched an attack against the DVs.

Their logic was simple: DVs are part of the local community and that should count for something in the eyes of the Malay Muslim insurgents. That logic is backed by the low number of violent confrontations between insurgents and DVs since January 2004.

But Friday's attack signalled a change in that trend, exiled separatist leaders said.

Sources in the separatist community said the idea behind this latest attack was to issue a stern warning to local Malay Muslims not to join up with the security apparatus.

Specifically, Friday's attack was a slap in the face for the Thung Yang Daeng Model, an Army initiative to outsource routine security work to local residents including the DVs, village chiefs and kamnans.

With the initiative, the Thai military is basically telling village-based officials that they no longer have the luxury of "looking the other way", and that if they are going to be on the government's payroll, they have to put their lives on the line for the state security apparatus.

DVs comprise locally recruited security details that come under a chain of command that runs from the Interior Ministry through the provincial government, district chiefs, village heads and kamnans.

The DVs are sometimes called on to provide security for ministry officials, and the insurgents rarely single them out for attack.

The attack on Friday marked the first time that a DV camp had been overrun by insurgents. It also marked the first time since February 2013 that Malay Muslim insurgents had launched an operation on any sort of military-security camp in this restive region, where more than 6,000 people have been killed since January 2004.

The February 2013 operation saw some 50 insurgents charge a Royal Thai Marine camp in Narathiwat's Bacho district. The marines had prior warning of the attack thanks to information found on the body of an insurgent who had been killed two weeks earlier in nearby Sai Buri district.

The incident ended in the death of 16 insurgents but revealed a level of support for their cause among the local residents, many of whom attended funerals at which the attackers were celebrated as martyrs in line with Islamic tradition.

The attack on Friday in Yaha shared features with other insurgent operations. Two roadside bombs were placed to the east of the camp, while on the west side, a huge tree was felled and road spikes laid to slow the arrival of reinforcements. Yaha police station is just four kilometres away.

Besides mobilising the local officers in the Interior Ministry chain of command, the Thung Yang Daeng Model also calls for the recruiting of local Muslims as reconnaissance scouts for Paramilitary Ranger patrols.

The military believes that locally hired Rangers should have a better idea of where the local cells are concealed. Unlike the DVs, the Rangers don't see themselves as sitting ducks for the insurgents.

And with locally recruited young men working as their scouts and directives from the regular Army unit commanders, these Rangers are constantly conducting long-range reconnaissance patrols to hunt down insurgents.

For the time being, their family members are being left alone. Separatist leaders said the militants are not permitted to harass the family members of local Rangers, though the movement considers those who join the paramilitary unit "fair game".

Speaking to reporters at the scene of Friday's attack, Lt-General Prakarn Cholayuth, commander of the 4th Army Region, said the incident was an example of how such security units were at the "receiving end" partly through being exposed and out in the open.

Prakarn said the role of DVs would continue unabated but added that certain adjustments would have to be made in order to strengthen their capacity to counter the militants. He didn't say what sort of adjustment would be made. But from the look of it, all sides - the Army and officials at the village level - will have to do some serious soul searching.

The separatist militants have already let the government know how far they are willing to go to rattle the much-praised Thung Yang Daeng Model. The ball, it seems, is now in the Thai court.

Don Pathan is a consultant and security analyst based in Yala. He is also the founding member of the Patani Forum (www.pataniforum.com).