The greater sophistication of their operational methods was evident late on Monday night and early Tuesday morning, when they carried out over 100 acts of sabotage in Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat and Songkhla. Such a coordinated effort required weeks of planning and communication among insurgents and their accomplices, who managed to avoid detection by police and military intelligence.

Most of the attacks involved the use of home-made petrol bombs and their targets ranged from private businesses, local government offices, schools and public property such as telephone booths. The worst incident was an arson attack on a rubber processing plant in Pattani's Nong Chik district that was razed. The fire destroyed 160 tonnes of rubber worth Bt30 million, and cost 250 workers their jobs.

Many of the insurgents are believed to be members of the communities where the attacks took place, while others simply went into hiding in the nearest community after committing the crimes.

It is not too difficult to guess why insurgents have been able to pull off such spectacular raids in addition to their almost daily attacks on security personnel, government officials and innocent civilians in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat.

The insurgents have demonstrated beyond any doubt that they have gained the upper hand in their fight against the Thai state. They can now choose the time and place to inflict casualties on government forces as well as humiliate them with acts of sabotage and get away scot-free.

In a climate in which even fully-armed police officers and soldiers are attacked and killed by insurgents on a daily basis, local people, who may not support the separatists' cause, have learned to lay low. Insurgents also see to it that community leaders or residents who cooperate with authorities become targets for murder and harassment.

It should come as little surprise then that police and soldiers have found it virtually impossible to gather intelligence and that's why they continue to fumble about as the three southernmost provinces are turned into a war zone.

More than 1,300 people, including Buddhist and Muslim civilians, have been killed in the ongoing violence in the deep South since the insurgency flared in January 2004.

It now appears that the militants have become far more skilled at what they do, while the police and military officers responsible for security in the region have remained incompetent, confused about their mission or the military rules of engagement.

In the two and a half years since the violence intensified, military reinforcements have almost always been slow to arrive, while the rapid deployment of forces is virtually unheard of, even at this late stage in the conflict. Police and soldiers almost never even try to give chase to the insurgents, whose aim it is to capture or kill them. Militants also know they can discourage police and soldiers merely by strewing their escape routes with spikes or blocking the roads with felled trees.

It may be true that the key to resolving the crisis in the deep South is winning the hearts and minds of the locals by addressing their decades-old grievances of neglect and discriminatory treatment from national officials. But the government will only keep losing ground unless its security apparatus starts to prove itself capable of upholding the rule of law, ensuring a high degree of public safety and effectively engaging insurgents militarily.