The start of ‘daily killings’
The peaceful interregnum was terminated in January 2004, when new waves of militant Muslims opened up their armed struggle with the attack of the army camp in Narathiwat, killing four soldiers and escaping with more than 400 rifles and machine guns. The militants also torched 20 schools in 10 districts in Narathiwat at the same time. All the soldiers executed were Buddhists while their Muslim colleagues were spared. As might be expected, the government stepped up its security measures in the area, resulting in the oft-screaming headline of “daily killings.” On April 28, 2004, the killings escalated. The shocking incident occurred in the Krue Se Mosque, an important historic place in Patani, when all 37 militant Muslims holed up in the mosque after raiding police and military outposts, were killed by the armed forces. The violence continued in another, but unrelated, incident in Takbai, Narathiwat province, when local people were demonstrating outside the police station against the jailing of Muslim suspects involved in violent cases in the area. They were rounded up by military forces and piled into army trucks to be transported to camps in Songkhla. When the trucks arrived many hours later, 86 Muslims had died due to suffocation.