“Four Thai Muslims have gone on trial in Bangkok, accused of plotting a series of attacks on foreign embassies and tourist spots in the kingdom. At earlier hearings, the four pleaded not guilty to being members of the regional terrorist group, Jemaah Islamiyah. Three of them — a medical doctor and a religious school owner and his son — were captured in June during a raid in the southern province of Narathiwat. The fourth man surrendered to authorities in July.”
Now what would make a doctor and a religious school owner join up with a terrorist group? If they really did, they hardly fit the general media profile of desperately poor and ignorant terrorists. But they do fit with the reality, established again and again, of relatively affluent and educated terrorists moved by religious motivations.