On January 4, 2004, raiders struck a military camp near Thailand's border with Malaysia, killing four soldiers. Since then, the violence and murder of a renewed insurgency have become daily staples of life in Thailand's Malay-majority borderlands, with seemingly little prospect of peace. Over the past four years, over 9,500 incidents of violence have been recorded, resulting in nearly 2,700 deaths and 6,000 injuries in southern Thailand.
About as many ethnic Thais or Chinese have been killed as Malays, who account for about 90 per cent of the 3 million people in the region. Despite the brutality there is, thankfully, an absence of communal clashes between Buddhists and Muslims, or Thais and Malays. But that may change as relations deteriorate and suspicions deepen.
The junta that seized power in September 2006 promised to get a grip on the south. Nevertheless, security forces - or, for that matter, guerillas - have not been prosecuted for violating human rights, despite ample evidence amassed by Human Rights Watch and other groups.
Hopes were raised in the second half of last year that the junta was beginning to crack the insurgent networks through raids that netted hundreds of suspects, weapons and other equipment. Sophisticated attacks seemed to drop off.
Yet the trend of violent incidents has continued to climb from about 100 a month in early 2004 to more than 250 now, according to the Deep South Watch group.
Marc Askew, an Australian anthropologist working in the borderlands, thinks the situation remains intractable. He notes the insurgents' power to intimidate Malay villagers into providing support, and to win some over. Whether this apparent stalemate continues depends on three things.