Enough is enough, just hoped the Thai government would restore order and prevent further violence in the south. But should also note the prime minister did expressed regret and promised an investigation into the events.

the prime-minister? maybe the australian or greek prime-minister.

good timing for killing 80 ppl, just before the tourists come. oh, sorry. i forgot they died cuz of the heat.

Make love not war

Peace not greed !

"But should also note the prime minister did expressed regret and promised an investigation into the events."

He also said he'd investigate who killed all those "drug dealers." Whatever happened with that? He said he would investigate who ordered the abduction the missing/murdered lawyer. Whatever happened with that?

Same thing that will happen with this: Nothing.

Since when has anyone in the government or military in this country ever paid for murdering people?

Did Thanom pay? Narong? Salang? Suchinda?

Did anyone who was responsible for 1997 pay?

No, instead the people most responsible are still screaming about George Soros. That's right, blame the foreigner instead of accepting your own responsibility.

Thaksin has already said the security forces did nothing wrong.

And the only reason he's now expressing regret - after essentially blaming the victims by saying they died because they were weak from fasting - is because his neighbors in Indonesia and Malaysia are pissed, and extremist groups in the Middle East are talking about taking revenge.

Read what they're saying in Indonesia and Malaysia. They're not buying his "regrets."

The problems in the South were steadily decreasing for the past decade. Until Thaksin took over and changed the policies and actions down there. He created this mess. He's the one to blame.

Well, many things going on in the south of Thailand, but ignoring it will not solve it. You have to increase police protection but also ensure that thai military/police arent applying heavy handed tactics to further alienate the population.

Right now it seems to be local people involved, as the picture of weopons seized where mostly ad-hoc collection of very old handguns, homemade guns, molotav cocktails, knifes, etc. But u dont want them to get any external support or sympathy because that will only invite greater numbers and issues.

What 's going in the south is bad. Thaksin made it worse by playing politics. This is what happened:

In the late 1990s, the government set up something called Task Force 43 which consisted of military, police and community leaders and worked on security issues. Because community leaders were involved, local people trusted it. Therefore, intelligence was good. Locals told the Task Force when bad things were going to go down. Violence decreased. The insurgency was just about dead. Locals were optimistic about the futue. Things were moving forward.

Task Force 43 was set up by Thaksin's predecessors and political rivals, the Democrats. He didn't care that it was working. In his narrow political and authoritarian world view, he assumed the Task Force wouldn't be loyal to him and didn't want his rivals to have credit for something that was effective. So Thaksin, an ex-policeman, disbanded it and turned security matters over to the police. The locals have a deep-seated hatred of the police, far more than the military, and for many good reasons which there isn't enough space to detail here. Intelligence flows stopped. Locals don't trust the police. And without the protection that the Task Force provided for those who passed on information to it, those people started getting killed by militants, old and new, who then found space to operate and increase their activities. And, according to very reliable sources, Thaksin also ordered the police to assassinate any remaining separatists. The locals saw this license to kill and lost even more trust in the authorities.

Thaksin messed up the situation. Now he's trying to fix it. Four months ago he set up the Southern Border Peackeeping Council, which was modeled after TF 43. It's had some mild success to start, but is still trying to rebuild what was lost as far as trust and local intelligence networks are concerned. That will take time. In the interim, no telling how many more screwups will happen and how much this insurgency will grow.

Thaksin played politics with security. Now Thailand is suffering.

Furthermore, with his typically insensitive and irresponsible comments, he increases the chances that more outside militants from other countries will get involved.

Personally, I think it's only a matter of time before the violence spreads north. I can't say one way or the other what the best way to deal with it is but I can say this... Bangkok has been lucky so far. I certainly hope that security is beefed up in the major tourist areas in the coming months. Since I'm planning on moving to BKK in the January or February I'm a little concerned about the recent events. If there is one thing I've seen over the past 10 years is that there will be an answer to this by the Islamic extremist. And the answer will probably be big, and in a major area. And what better way to hurt the country than by scaring people who might spend money there.