Senior government officials including Army chief Sonthi Boonyaratglin and Interior Minister Aree Wongsearaya do themselves no favours when they say they knew in advance that attacks were due to occur in the deep South - then fail to prevent them taking place.

Nine people were killed and more than 40 injured when dozens of bombs, shootings and arson attacks occurred on Sunday and early yesterday as people celebrated the start of the Chinese New Year.

The spate of attacks made it seem there were no security guards in the four southernmost provinces. But more than 14,000 security officials of all kinds are stationed in the largely Muslim region. However, militants have created the impression they can undertake violence at any time and in any place they wish - as if the troops were toy soldiers.

General Sonthi admitted publicly he had received a report in advance that the militants would attack around this time but officials failed to block the latest well-organised attacks.

Interior Aree repeated the same message yesterday before departing to the deep South, saying he passed "intelligence information" to concerned authorities about the attacks.

"The officials did not fail but it was not easy to prevent such an operation," the minister told reporters.

The Internal Security Operation Command (Isoc) and the Southern Border Province Administrative Centre were previously blamed by Premier Surayud Chulanont for failing to improve the situation two months after their set-ups were revised.

Army Chief of Staff General Montri Sangkasap defended Isoc yesterday, saying the joint military-civilian agency performed acceptably. Its staff were "on alert" on Sunday, and had defused eight bombs, he said.

"The authority flew two helicopters over the areas and managed to control the situation by 10pm Sunday," he said.

The Isoc Fourth Region had issued a warning that attacks would occur on Sunday aimed mostly at "soft targets". "But local officials ignored this and failed to detect weapons at entertainment venues such as hotels and karaoke bars. They allowed loopholes for the militants," said Gen Montri, who is also Isoc secretary general.

Montri pointed the finger at civilian officials, saying militants launched their attacks mostly in urban areas which were the responsibility of the Interior Ministry and police.

The army chief of staff also warned that there would be more "terrorist" attacks by Muslim insurgents in the region.

"The modus operundi is obviously terrorist acts, of course. It's not the style of international terrorists but it is still an operation of terrorism. They operate at full scale now," he said. 

However, his warning is not completely new. The attacks on Sunday were not the first time "soft targets" have been hit. Karaoke bars, hotels, restaurants, banks and even schools have been attacked over the three years that the insurgency has raged.

Attacks in urban areas are not unusual. Yala and Narathiwat provincial halls, located in the heart of local centres, were attacked in 2004 and 2005 - during daytime. While these types of attacks on "soft" targets in urban areas are now being called "terrorist acts", they have been going on since the spate of violence erupted in January 2004. But officials cannot excuse their failure to stop the attacks by saying they have taken tougher action.

An academic at Prince of Songkhla University's Pattani campus, Srisompob Jitpiromsri, noted that the Chinese New Year attacks were an attempt to divide cultures - and differentiate between local Muslim and Chinese communities. Attacks on entertainment venues sent a message that the militants put religious and cultural elements in their struggle, he said.

"The new generation of insurgents make it clear that they don't want to live with different cultures," he said. "The violence could be interpreted in that Muslims won't accept social evils such as karaoke," he said.

Srisompob, who has collected data on the violence for years, predicted the militants would launch more attacks in the near future as they have better capability than local officials - they could move about freely while security officials were locked in a defensive mode, and it was not easy to prevent such violence, he said.

Statements by officials that they already knew such attacks were planned do nothing to help solve the problem but just shows that government incompetence still exists.

Supalak Ganjanakhundee

The Nation