Evidently the jihadis in Thailand are not targeting just the government. That they would target a solitary Buddhist monk can likely be explained by the traditional ideology of jihad and dhimmitude, which holds the lives of "idolaters" forfeit. This from Reuters, with thanks to Susan:
A Buddhist monk was killed with a sword in southern Thailand on Thursday and police detained three Muslims suspected of involvement in a surge of violence in the largely Muslim region, officials said.The murder followed a series of searches and interrogations of Muslims and their clerics by police looking for assault rifles stolen from an army base and those responsible for burning schools and for bomb attacks this month.
Police said the slaying could have been caused by a "third party" which wanted to cause a rift between people of the two religions in Bajor, 1,150 km (720 miles) south of Bangkok.
What third party could that be? Or is this just more dhimmitude from Thai authorities, wanting to minimize the possibility that the killing was done by mujahedin?
"This is the first time they killed a monk," Police Colonel Nukul Kraithong of Bajor police station told Reuters."Although most people in this town are Muslims, they live in harmony. There has never been a religious conflict here."
The monk, 64-year-old Jad Madmunee, was killed with a sword wielded by one of two men on a motorcycle while walking back to a temple in Narathiwat after his morning rounds to collect food as alms, police said. He died on the way to hospital.
The government imposed martial law on Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala provinces near the Malaysian border following a series of deadly attacks early this month which rocked the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Four soldiers were killed and more than 100 guns, most of them M-16s, stolen in a January 4 raid on an army base in Narathiwat. More than 20 schools were torched in what officials believe was a diversionary tactic.
A day later, two policemen were killed trying to defuse a bomb in Pattani and a police station in Yala was raided by a dozen gunmen on January 7. No one was killed.
Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh told reporters in Pattani on Thursday one suspect was arrested in connection with the Yala raid and his information led to the detention of two others.
"We know that seven or eight people were involved in the incident, but we could issue arrest warrants for only three. Only one has been caught so far," Chavalit said after meeting Muslim clerics and academics in Pattani.
Apart from sending hundreds of soldiers and police to hunt for suspects and weapons in deep jungle along the Malaysian border, the government is also launching a public relations campaign to win over the region where most of Thailand's six million Muslims live.
Dow Jones Newswire says: "An outburst of the tension erupted Thursday when a Buddhist monk was hacked to death while begging for food"
http://framehosting.dowjonesnews.com/sample/samplestory.asp?StoryID=2004012302400023&Take=1
Also in this report it says:
On the steps leading to the women's prayer room at Pattani's central mosque, three young girls sat weaving a jump rope. They chatted in their mother tongue.
When a reporter approached, a five-year-old asked in Thai: "Are you Thai or Muslim?"
When asked the same question in return, the girls said they were Muslim.
"But you speak Thai, aren't you also Thai?"
No, no, no, they replied, giggling at the absurdity of the question and reminding the visitor that "Thais" - meaning Buddhists - aren't allowed to pray in the mosque.
Historically, Islamic jihad has been particularly damaging to Buddhism...From Vincent Smith's, "The Oxford History of India", 1928, p. 221, describing the conquest of Bihar, based on MUSLIM sources-
"..The Muhammadan historian, indifferent to distinctions among idolators, states that the majority of the inhabitants were 'clean shaven Brahmans', who were all put to the sword. He evidently means Buddhist monks, as he was informed that the whole city and fortress were considered to be a college, which the name Bihar signifies. A great library was scattered. When the victors desired to know what the books might be no man capable of explaining their contents had been left alive. No doubt everything was burnt. The multitude of images used in Medieval Buddhist worship always inflamed the fanaticism of Muslim warriors to such fury that no quarter was given to the idolators. The ashes of the Buddhist sanctuaries at Sarnath near Benares still bear witness to the rage of the image breakers. Many noble monuments of the ancient civilization of India were irretrievably wrecked in the course of the early Muhammadan invasions. Those invasions were fatal to the existence of Buddhism as an organized religion in northern India, where its strength resied chiefly in Bihar and certain adjoining territories. The monks who escaped massacre fled, and were scattered over Nepal, Tibet, and the south. After A.D. 1200 the traces of Buddhism in upper India are faint and obscure. "
During the Islamic conquest of India, the Muslim commander, Mohammad Qasim, decided to moderate the extreme violence inflicted on the Hindu’s. On hearing this his superior Hajjaj wrote back instructing him:
The great God says in the Kuran (47.4): “O True believers, when you encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads.” The above command of the Great God is a great command and must be respected and followed. You should not be so fond of showing mercy, as to nullify the virtue of the act. Henceforth, grant pardon to no one of the enemy and spare none of them, or else all will consider you a weak minded-man
Serge Trifkovic, The Sword of the Prophet, pp.109-110