Thailand Bombings: Malay Separatists Shift their Campaign North
Against the backdrop of polarised politics and an impending royal succession, the wave of bombings that struck beach resorts across southern Thailand at the end of last week has underscored the dangerously brittle nature of the nation’s stability. Given the specific nature of the attacks and their broader political backdrop, we at Access Asia are in very little doubt that separatist insurgents of the Patani Malay National Revolutionary Front were behind the operation.
Between the afternoon of 11 August and the morning of 12 August, multiple locations in seven provinces were targeted by relatively small improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and incendiary devices remotely detonated by the alarm clock function of mobile phones. Four people were killed and 25 wounded including 11 foreign tourists.
On the Andaman sea coast the provinces of Trang, Krabi, Phuket and Pha-nga were affected while on the Gulf of Thailand coast Surat Thani, Nakhorn Sri Thammarat and Prachuab Khirikhan were affected. The popular resort town of Hua Hin in Prachuab was worst hit with four bombs killing two and injuring over 20. No group has claimed responsibility.
Obviously not intended to cause mass casualties, the blasts bore none of the hallmarks of international jihadist terrorism; but they did strike two distinct domestic targets. The immediate casualty was Thailand’s tourism industry which is heavily dependent on southern beach resorts and which is the only real growth sector in an otherwise stagnant economy. The other was the credibility of the military junta, the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) headed by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha which since seizing power in a 2014 coup has made a point of touting its success in restoring law and order.
Predictably in the Thai political and cultural context, the bombings triggered a firestorm of speculation and impassioned conspiracy theories in both social and mainstream media. Equally predictably, within 24 hours the military government had begun to impose its own preferred spin on a police investigation that had hardly begun, by pointing a finger at the political opposition.
All signs point to BRN
Given the specific nature of the attacks and their broader political backdrop, we at Access Asia are in very little doubt as to who was behind the operation: separatist insurgents of the Patani Malay National Revolutionary Front better known by its Malay initials of BRN. In our assessment BRN is simply the only domestic actor with both the political motive and the operational capability and experience to conduct a carefully planned and well-coordinated wave of bombings across a wide geographical area of Thailand.
We are confident in dismissing two other domestic players to whom culpability has been attributed: elements of the opposition United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) or ‘Red Shirt’ movement loyal to the Shinwatra clan of exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra; and dissident factions within the military itself.
Elements of the UDD have every interest in discrediting a military that has twice ousted democratically elected Shinwatra-led governmments with coups in 2006 and 2014. Opposition anger over military rule has only been enflamed by defeat in a national referendum held on 7 August, four days before the bombings, which endorsed a draft constitution that underwrites the military’s grip over electoral politics and political parties for years to come. But even assuming an improbable readiness to sabotage the national economy, the Red Shirt movement entirely lacks the capability to launch such an operation.
Notwithstanding sporadic forays into para-military violence on the streets of Bangkok in the unrest of 2010, Red Shirt militants have never displayed any capacity for well-coordinated clanestine operations across wide areas. More importantly, both before and since the coup of 2014, UDD leaders and activists along with allied politicians of the ousted Pheu Thai Party have been under intensive military surveillance. The proposition such elements could have planned, prepared and executed a complex wave of attacks with excellent operational security under the nose of the military government strains credibility beyond breaking point.
Convoluted conspiracy theories over military plotting are commonplace in a country with a long tradition of military intervention in politics and repeated coups. And in this instance Access Asia is aware that opposition loyalists, incensed by NCPO insinuations that they were behind the attacks, have been eagerly spreading counter-allegations of military skulduggery across social media platforms. In the real world, however, there is simply no evidence of rifts in the army serious enough to impell one faction to carry out lethal attacks on Thai citizens in order to discredit another faction in power – least of all on 12 August, the birthday of Queen Sirikit and a celebration of a monarchy the Thai military is sworn to defend.
Attacks match BRN’s modus operandi
By contrast, having waged a stubbornly persistent insurgency across the majority Malay-Muslim border provinces since 2004, BRN is well experienced in exactly the sort of operation executed over the holiday. Over the past 13 years it has repeatedly and with evident impunity launched complex operations involving IED and arson attacks coordinated across multiple districts in the border provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala and occasionally across provincial borders. The type of IEDs used in the recent attacks along with the triggering method and even the Samsung ‘Hero’ brand of mobile phones used bear striking parallels with BRN’s modus operandi in recent years.
While the group has preferred to confine its activities to the contested border provinces, it has in the past also conducted tentative operations further afield. In 2013 it staged an abortive car-bomb attack in Phuket and in April last year struck the resort island of Koh Samui with another car-bomb. Launched late in the evening in an underground car-park, the attack was again intended to minimise casaulties while sending a pointed message regarding the group’s capacity to target a tourist center well beyond its primary area of operations – a message the government preferred to dismiss.
If BRN unquestionably has capability and experience, does the group have any compelling motive to shift its campaign beyond the border region into the central and upper south? We assess that for two related reasons it does. The first relates to peace negotiations.
In October 2015 BRN’s shadowy leadership issued a rare communique underscoring a willingness to negotiate with Bangkok with the key proviso of a guarantee of international mediation. Loath to countenance any internationalisation of what it insists is a domestic issue, the government has preferred to pursue an essentially cosmetic process of talks facilitated by Malaysia with a group of aging separatist leaders with no control over operations inside Thailand. By shifting the campaign north to threaten Thailand’s economic jugular, BRN is calculating it may now command Bangkok’s attention from a position of undeniable strength.
Secondly, BRN leaders are apparently aware of the need to recalibrate a campaign that has now dragged on for 13 years with few concrete gains to show a weary population. Dramatically widening the conflict underscores both to the movement’s support base and to a wider Malay-Muslim constituency that the group is now a force the government ignores at its peril.
Amid clear signs of politicization, the police investigation into the bombings is still in its early stages. But for the above reasons we at Access Asia have no hesitation in putting forward the above conclusions. If, as the adage goes, it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, there’s a high probability it is a duck.
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Access Asia Consulting Company is a boutique risk management firm specializing in corporate investigations, due diligence, and security-related services across Southeast Asia and China. For further information or enquiries about our services, please contact [email protected]
