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praiseworthy.” As alluded to earlier, perhaps what was most disquieting aspect
of the posting was the claim of religious justification of violence. Citing At
Taubah 29, the posting averred that a war has to be declared on those who do not
worship Allah, those who are too concerned with worldly matters, those who do
not forbid what has been forbidden by Allah and His prophets, and those who
do not practice the Islam as defined by the fundamentalists.
The posting also cites the popular surah Al-Anfal 39, which calls for war to be
waged against infidels until there is no more discord and Allah alone is
worshipped. Nevertheless, the posting inevitably also made references to local
history when it described the southern provinces as lands that belonged to Islam,
and described the liberation of these lands as the responsibility of Muslims
within the vicinity, a clear allusion to Indonesia and Malaysia.
After both the 2005 and 2008 postings, attacks and killings continued unabated in
southern Thailand. That said, operations have remained confined to the southern
border provinces. The calls in these postings aside, there is still no conclusive
evidence of international jihadi presence or influence in the south. Indeed, largescale
terrorist activity has noticeably reduced over the last few years. It is
important to note too, that the established insurgent groups like PULO and BRN-
C have roundly rejected these postings. This is not surprising, given the fact that
these groups are cognizant that any move on their part to cooperate or even
communicate with international jihadi and terrorist organisations would
fundamentally undermine their cause and objectives, and jeopardise the
goodwill that they have cultivated in the international community (by playing
up the human rights abuses perpetrated by Thai security forces). This is
particularly true if they become listed as terrorist organisations. Indeed, the
Jemaah Islamiyah and al-Qa’ida brand of religiously-sanctioned violence cuts
little ice with the highly-localized and nationalist objectives of the southern Thai
insurgency, which include greater political participation, recognition of Malay-
Muslim identity and religion, the use of Jawi as the official language in the three
southern border provinces, and greater control over economic resources in the
region. This probably explains the general absence of transnational jihad
narratives, which do not appear to have made a significant mark on the
trajectory of the conflict.
The Salience of Jihadi Ideology in Context
From the preceding discussion, several observations can be drawn. First, there is
a lack of published literature in southern Thailand in the genre of Islamist
ideologies that espouse violence. Thus far, only two sustained articulations of the
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