On January 14, two border patrol officers in Narathiwat province, in Thailand’s south, were killed when a homemade bomb detonated on their pickup truck on the way to Tua Ngo Border Patrol Police School where they worked. A day earlier, nine Thai police officers and village defense volunteers were injured when a bomb planted in a parked motorcycle exploded at a police station in Pattani. While the Malay-Muslim population of southern Thailand has become albeit uncomfortably normalized to flareups in violence, the two incidents made national headlines as they occurred just prior to Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s visit to the southern provinces last week.
Mark Cogan
Mark S. Cogan is an Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka Prefecture, Japan.Categories
About Mark
Mark S. Cogan is a Associate Professor at Kansai Gaidai University based in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. He is a former communications specialist with the United Nations in Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East.