A video purporting to have been made by international militant Islamist group Al-Qaeda (“The Base”) and uploaded to video sharing website YouTube has called for a jihad against former Thailand prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The 2.45 minute video accuses Shinawatra of being responsible for the mass killings of Sunni Muslims in Thailand’s South at the Krue Se Mosque, regarded by Muslims as the holiest mosque in Pattani, in April 2004 and at Tak Bai in October of the same year.
At the Krue Se Mosque incident Royal Thailand Army (RTA) General Pallop Pinmanee, commander of the Southern Peace Enhancement Center and Deputy Director of the Internal Security Operations Command (Isoc), ordered a full-scale military assault against insurgents hiding out in the building in contravention to a direct order by then minister of defence Chavalit Yongchaiyudh to seek a peaceful resolution to the stand-off no matter how long it took, killing 32 people.
At the latter incident 85 Southern Thailand Muslims were killed by the RTA after an estimated 1,500 gathered in front of a police station to protest the detention of six people.
Video, photographs, and eye-witness reports by journalists at the scene showed protesters being forced to strip to the waist and lie on the ground while being whipped with sticks, kicked, and beaten, before being stacked onto trucks up to four layers high with their hands tied behind their backs. Seventy-eight of them died from suffocation and organ failure while being driven five hours to the Inkayut Military Camp in Pattani Province. (See: Tak Bai Massacre (Part I) video)
No one prosecuted for Thailand Muslim massacres
Though various inquiries have been held into the two incidents and a formal apology was made by former prime minister Surayud Chulanont in 2006, no person has faced criminal prosecution over the deaths.
Last year the relatives of those killed at Tak Bai were refused permission to appeal the findings of a 2009 inquest that found that security officials had done nothing wrong, though subsequent to the court ruling the Thailand government offered reparations to the families of those killed.
In the video, delivered in both Arabic and English, three masked men, two of whom appear to be armed with AK-47 assault rifles and holding a photo of the deposed former Thailand leader, call for Muslims worldwide to support their goal.
“You are still implementing your evil policies on Muslims in south Thailand by your puppet government run by your sister (current Thailand Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra). You can see the death squad behind me.
“From now we inform you and (sic) we will try and kill you anywhere in the world. You are not safe anymore. We will kill you in order to revenge for our Muslims (sic) brothers and sisters. We also request all the Muslim nation (sic) in this world to (indecipherable) you and kill you anywhere in the world. Allahu Akbar”
The jihad against the fugitive former prime minister, who has lived in self imposed exile since fleeing ahead of a 2008 verdict by the Thailand Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Holders of Political Position which found him guilty of abuse of power and sentenced him to two years imprisonment over a land deal by his former wife Potjaman, coincides with the deposed leader celebrating his 65th birthday in Beijing, China.
The jihad call also coincides with a week-long visit by Ms Shinawatra to the African nations of Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda aimed at boosting bilateral trade between Thailand and the African nations.
Thailand government spokesman Teerat Ratanasevi refused to respond to requests as to whether security for Ms Shinawatra had been stepped-up in the wake of the jihad threat prior to publication.
Since 2004 more than 5,300 Muslims and Buddhists have been killed in the four Southern Thailand provinces of Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat and Songkhla, with Thai army soldiers and school teachers a frequent target, some teachers having been gunned down in front of their students.
An earlier version of this story was published in The Establishment Post in July 2013 as Al-Queda issues Jihad against former Thai PM
Video (Via YouTube)
Related:
- Thaksin royal pardon has Thailand coup watchers on alert as the 9s line up again
- CIA ‘can’t rule out al-Qaeda role in Thaksin video’ (The Nation)
- ‘Al-Qaeda’ issues Thaksin threat (Bangkok Post)
Al-Qaeda call for jihad against former Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra added by John Le Fevre on
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He has spent extensive periods of time working in Africa and throughout Southeast Asia, with stints in the Middle East, the USA, and England.
He has covered major world events including Operation Desert Shield/ Storm, the 1991 pillage in Zaire, the 1994 Rwanda genocide, the 1999 East Timor independence unrest, the 2004 Asian tsunami, and the 2009, 2010, and 2014 Bangkok political protests.
In 1995 he was a Walkley Award finalist, the highest awards in Australian journalism, for his coverage of the 1995 Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) Ebola outbreak.
Most recently he was the Thailand editor/ managing editor of AEC News Today . Prior to that he was the deputy editor and Thailand and Greater Mekong Sub-region editor for The Establishment Post, predecessor of Asean Today.
In the mid-80s and early 90s he owned JLF Promotions, the largest above and below the line marketing and PR firm servicing the high-technology industry in Australia. It was sold in 1995.
Opinions and views expressed on this site are those of the author’s only. Read more at About me
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