Waking Up to the Terror Threat in Southern Thailand
An insurgent movement within the Thai Muslim community has led to over 200 deaths in southern Thailand this year. The presence of the expensive, brand-new Yala Islamic College, primarily funded by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, is not unrelated to this violence, says this article in Singapore’s Straits Times. The 1,500-some students there dress in traditional Arab garb and are taught a strict version of sharia Islamic law in Arabic. Professors there come from further west, products of universities and schools in the Middle East and North Africa. With them, these teachers, including the president of the institution – a graduate of a hardline Wahhabi university in Saudi Arabia – bring a wave of radical Islamism that poses a threat to the mainly peaceful, moderate version practiced by most Thai Muslims. The Thai government, slow to recognize the security threat, now sees the college along with smaller “pondok” Islamic scho