ศาสตร์เกษตรดินปุ๋ย : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation
ANALYSIS
LIKE PREVIOUS attacks by Malay-Muslim separatist militants, the latest three bomb blasts have forced Thai security planners to scramble for answers amid growing fears that the violence in the far South may be crossing a new threshold.
A minute later, the bombs went off. The explosion ripped through the hotel’s lobby, shattering windows both in the hotel and surrounding shop houses, shredding vehicles and motorbikes parked nearby and sending shockwaves across the country, which has yet to come to terms with the recent spate of bombings in seven provinces in the upper South.
As expected, policymakers in Bangkok insist that the Tuesday night attacks in Pattani were not related to the ones two weeks earlier.
Suhaimee Dulasa, a senior member of the Patani Institute, a local civil society organisation, said he was perplexed at suggestions that the Tuesday night bombings along with other similar attacks in the region, were meant to force the Thai government to make concessions at the negotiating table with MARA Patani.
“People in the region and just about everybody monitoring peace initiatives for the Patani region know very well that MARA Patani does not have any command or control over the combatants on the ground,” Suhaimee said.
From the looks of it, the bombs used on Tuesday night were deadly but not meant to come up with a body count.
The first bomb, a very small one, went off at about 10.30pm just outside a discotheque about 100 metres from the hotel. Nobody is really sure what to make of this explosion, because it does not match previous attacks.
Previously, the first bomb – usually a small one – is intended to draw security officials to the site of the attack, where they are greeted by a much bigger and more deadly bomb set off by someone within the line of vision. A third bomb detonated harmlessly after the main attack on the hotel.
However, the one on Tuesday night was different, as the explosives packed vehicle was parked more than 100 metres from the first bomb. And instead of it being set off by someone nearby, a timer was used to explode it.
The incident has made political leaders even more confused as they work to quell growing fears that the attacks two weeks ago and the one on Tuesday night are related.
If the attacks in upper South were the work of suspected insurgents as suggested by officials, then it would mean that the government’s policy for the restive region has failed, even though the authorities have claimed that they are on the right track for the South. And the fact that the insurgents have the audacity to continue with such attacks despite heightened security across the country suggests that they have absolutely no respect for the country’s security apparatus, local officials said.