Zachary Abuza has a long informative post on the Thai situation at the Counterterrorism Blog:

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... While the justification and rationale for the coup is still debated, people across the political spectrum placed considerable hope that the Council on National Security (CNS) and the government that they installed would do a better job than the Thaksin administration in stemming the violence.

Yet, the exact opposite has been true: the daily average rate of killing has more than tripled in the past six months, from 1.6 people a day in 2006 to almost four per day. Over 400 people, roughly 19 percent of the 2,100 people killed since January 2004 have died since the coup. Attacks have become more sophisticated and coordinated. Sadly the junta leaders remain oblivious to the reality on the ground and show precious little resolve in dealing with the insurgency, they remain mired in petty political squabbles in Bangkok and blind to the reports from their field commanders.

Besides the dramatic escalation in the number of people killed, there have been six discernable trends since the coup.

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Second, the attacks have been far more provocative, such as the attack on the minivan. The rate of beheadings has increased: 10 percent of all the beheadings have occurred in 2007, alone. In this year alone, there have already been three attacks on members of royal entourages. While insurgents have stepped up their attacks on police and soldiers, civilians, monks, women (including pregnant women), and children have been killed with appalling frequency. A week ago, insurgents opened fire on a class of 5th graders, leaving one 11-year old in a coma. The following day two female students were gunned down on their way to class. Monks have been targeted as well. These provocative attacks are meant to illicit heavy-handed government responses to further alienate the security forces from the broader Muslim community. While insuurgents have not attacked soft targets out of area, it is on the table. teams were caught in Bangkok in November 2005 and in Phuket in September 2006. It is on the table, yet, unlikely to be emplyed now as their tactics are working: they're winning.

Third, teachers and schools, those vulnerable agents of secularization and assimilation, continue to be prime targets of the insurgents. This has both eroded the social fabric of the region, while at the same time, forced the Muslim population to send their children to the private Islamic schools favored by the insurgents. Insurgents have killed Muslim teachers at government-supported Islamic schools with a mixed curriculum. On 17 March, insurgents struck an Islamic school in Songkhla, killing three boys between 12-14. While they were sending a message to the Muslim community to not send their children to government-supported schools, they were also hoping that many in the community would blame the government or Buddhist vigilantes for the attacks. Which leads to the fourth trend, more sectarian violence and ethnic cleansing. Already, 15 percent of the Buddhist community has fled the region. There have been stepped up threats and more leaflets left by insurgents to intimidate the local Buddhist population to leave.

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While no group has taken credit for any attack, nor publicly stated their demands, this is not a bunch of nihilistic youths. This is a highly organized, though cellular, movement, with clear command and control. The Barisan Revolusi Nasional Coordinasi and the Gerakan Mujihidin Islamiyah Pattani are able to execute coordinated attacks, near simultaneously, across four provinces on a regular basis. Thai Muslim insurgents have never been more disciplined and united.

Their ideology has also never been so Islamist. The insurgents today are fundamentally different than previous generations. In addition to the broadened targeting of women, children, monks and the de facto ethnic cleansing that has transpired, the Islamist agenda is manifest in other ways. They are not out to win hearts and minds: they are thuggish, brutal, and imposing their values on the community. Over 50 percent of their victims have been fellow Muslims....(Emphasis added.)

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There is much more. The high number of attacks on fellow Muslims may have been the biggest surprise in this post, but it is consistent with the Taliban nature of the groups and their search for "purification" of Islam along with the religious bigotry toward people of other religions. Abuza is a political science professor at Simmons College in Boston where he teaches Southeast Asian politics.