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| Southeast Asia |
| How young Muslims fall prey to militant thinking |
| 2007-06-04 |
| It took two days for the young Muslim assassin to calm his nerves before the slaying. Then, Mohama Waekaji says, he walked one cool morning to a rice mill, carrying a knife and following orders from a guerrilla commander to behead the 72-year-old Buddhist owner. He asked the elderly man, Juan Kaewtongprakam, for some rice husks. As he turned to collect them, Waekaji says, he slashed the blade through the man’s neck. “I didn’t dare to disobey,” the 23-year-old Waekaji said in an interview with The Associated Press - the first time a Thai militant accused of a beheading has spoken to the Western media. “I knew they would come after me if I did not do what I was told”. Twenty-five beheadings - including 10 already this year - have been reported in southern Thailand since an Islamic-inspired insurgency erupted in 2004, claiming more than 2,200 lives. Militants in the heavily Muslim region seek independence from mostly Buddhist Thailand. “Beheadings are certainly on the rise outside of the Middle East proper,” said Timothy Furnish, professor of Middle Eastern history at Georgia Perimeter College. “These groups do take their cues from hardcore Islamic thought coming out of the Arab world. Beheading infidels not only shocks, but also demonstrates Islamic bona fides to other groups.” Beheadings are not solely a tool of guerrillas. It imposed as punishment under some strict interpretations of Islamic law such as in Saudi Arabia and under the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Waekaji’s account of his journey - from quiet, average student to a confessed killer - offers insights into how young Muslims fall under the influence of militant thinking. He was attending a private Islamic school in Pattani province when a school buddy persuaded him to join a religious event at a mosque. There “ustad,” or teachers, told him about an organisation to liberate southern Thailand, asking him to take an oath to become a servant of Allah, obey the teachers and take the secrets of the organisation to his grave. Although confused and with little knowledge of politics, he took the oath and began secret training at age 19. His teachers stressed the sufferings of Muslims in the Palestinian territories and Afghanistan and also in Thailand, where many Muslims feel they are second-class citizens in a Buddhist-dominated land. The teachers detailed the Tak Bai tragedy of 2004 when Thai security forces confronted Muslim protesters, resulting in the deaths of 85. The victims died of suffocation when authorities arrested 1,300 people and stacked them on top of each other in trucks. “I was shaken when I heard the story. I was revengeful and I did hate them, those who did this to us Muslims,” Waekaji said at the prison in Na Pradu, about 680 miles south of Bangkok. His story could not be independently confirmed, but Waekaji has made a formal written confession and the police have filed a case against him in criminal court. During rigorous training, he learned how to do knuckle push-ups, wield knives, swords and guns and how to take a life by squeezing an opponent’s Adam’s apple with his hands or breaking a victim’s neck. After two years, he was sent out to burn tires and spread nails on roads to puncture tires and distract police before attacks staged by his comrades. When the order came to slay the mill owner - a person he had seen but didn’t know - Waekaji said he was frightened, both by the orders and what his leaders would do to him if he failed. “It was too late to want out,” he said, his eyes closed and his head downcast. “It was either me or him.” Police found the man’s headless body at the rice mill and his head in a nearby field that separates Muslim and Buddhist villages. Waekaji was arrested and charged with the killing about two months later. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #5 I think a dozen nations in europe are just now realizing it, but they don't seem very worried for some reason. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2007-06-04 23:21 |
| #4 At some point a dozen nations are going to realize their survival is at stake and their muslim minorities will be tossed out or killed. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2007-06-04 19:18 |
| #3 How young Muslims fall prey to militant thinking That would be by reading the Koran or listening to anyone who preaches from it. Maybe we should engage them on on a global scale. Absolutely, first and foremost by instituting a global campaign of targeted assassinations against Islam's uppermost echalons of jihadist fianaciers and indoctrinators. Less than thirty operations would take a huge amount of wind from the sails of global jihad. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-06-04 15:24 |
| #2 Muslims believe they are in a global war. Even Clinton's pro-Muslim interventions didn't shake that view. Maybe we should engage them on on a global scale. |
| Posted by: McZoid 2007-06-04 06:51 |
| #1 Guess what's going to happen to you now? Best thing to do is kill the one that told you "Murder-or-else". |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2007-06-04 06:24 |