Shadowy insurgents in Thai south not trying to win hearts and minds

'We just don't know who they are and we don't know what they want.' Talk to Buddhists and Muslims living daily with the threat of an Islamist insurgency in Thailand's deep south and that phrase becomes a mantra. You hear it from community leaders, teachers and market traders in the towns and from villagers in the humble fishing communities on the coast.

As the insurgents enter their fourth year of terrorism apparently stronger and more violent than ever, their precise goals remain largely hidden despite the killing of an estimated 2,000 people in bombings, shootings, arson and beheadings. They have never emerged to claim responsibility or state their goals, unlike earlier southern separatist movements.

That uncertainty only breeds fear in the hot shadows of the south. 'It is all any of us talks about,' said one gold trader. Most think the insurgents are winning, despite the more proactive policies of Thailand's new military installed government. The daily death toll has risen to about five people every two days in the wake of September's coup.

For many, the blitz of attacks on ethnic Chinese residents and businesses at Lunar New Year provides a window into their goals - the collapse of the southern economy, driving out Buddhists and a complete rejection of recognised government authority. It represented an escalation in a campaign previously targeting government-funded schools, institutions and temples.

In the torching of the Southland Rubber Company's warehouse outside Yala shortly after Lunar New Year they made their biggest economic strike yet. Some 5,000 tonnes of rubber burned for several days in a blaze visible for kilometres around, with a value estimated at US$11.8 million. It represented 10 per cent of the south's monthly rubber output - one of its few core industries.

Rubber prices have been rising but the south's output has been slashed in half as rubber tappers, many of them Muslim, flee plantations amid regular reports of shootings and beheadings.