Former deputy prime minister Chidchai Vanasatidya began 2006 with a bold announcement that the situation in the restive South would improve steadily by the end of April.

He said the government had solved "40 per cent" of the problems and claimed most of the militant leaders had been arrested.

He had great confidence that things would steadily improve.

How Chidchai quantified or justified his statement remains a mystery because exactly one year later, the killings in the Malay-speaking South still continue unabated with no end in sight. Over 1,900 people have been killed since January 2004.

Within four weeks of Chidchai making the announcement, at least 20 gunmen armed with automatic assault weapons attacked a train station in Narathiwat's Rusoh district, killing one on-duty officer as a passenger train was arriving at the station and sending scores of bystanders running for cover.

Violence continued steadily on a daily basis but a hint at changes of tactics came in late April when Army chief General Sonthi Boonyaratglin admitted to the existence of "blacklists" used by the authorities to catch suspected insurgents, and added that the way individuals came to be listed was "questionable".

He said personal grudges might be the underlying motive, but did not accuse any agency of using the list for illegal killings. But suspicions of extra-judicial killings continue to pit Muslim villagers against government security units resulting in regular stand-offs between the two sides.

In mid-May, a powerful blast ripped through a tea-shop, tore a military vehicle to pieces, killed two women and a soldier, and injured 16 others. The bomb was carried on a motorbike and parked next to a Unimog military transport vehicle just five metres from a teashop frequented by soldiers and police.

The explosion spread deadly shrapnel across a 50-metre radius.

One of the most talked about incidents was the beating of two female teachers in the remote Narathiwat village of Kuching Reupah.

Juling Pangamoon, a Chiang Rai native, remains in a coma. She serves as a reminder of the incompetence of the security units assigned to the restive region.

Sonthi admitted the two teachers should have been rescued in minutes and promised an investigation. But the public never received an answer as to why the response time was more than two hours when the school was less than 30 minutes away from a local military task force headquarters.

The report of the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) was possibly the most important product of the second Thaksin government but it failed to get anybody's attention, including the media.

The purpose of the NRC was to set up a framework for working towards reconciliation over the long term. But the council ducked the issue for the establishment of special administrative arrangement that would recognise that this region is truly different.

The region went into a tailspin in mid-June as suspected insurgents launched a huge series of well co-ordinated bomb attacks, hitting at least 40 targets, mostly security positions and government installations, killing two people and injuring at least 25. The attacks, launched between 8.30am and 9am, jolted the security and intelligence community amid growing criticism over their inability to curb the violence.

The then Interior chief Kongsak Wantana blamed Malaysia, saying the bombs were assembled there. But Kuala Lumpur rejected this outright and Bangkok eventually backed off.

Unable to get the accusation against Malaysia to stick, the Thaksin administration blamed Army chief Sonthi and added that he would be required to take a more active role in solving the ongoing crisis in the deep South and make more frequent visits to the area.

The move was welcomed by Sonthi, but fundamentally nothing really changed except that the Army chief would be required to make more trips to the region.

The crisis had crossed a new threshold with the bomb attacks in Hat Yai, considering the scale of the damage and the choice of targets. A cluster of Yala-based operatives were blamed - the same outfit behind the Hat Yai Airport bombing in April 2005, as well as the bombing blitz in downtown Yala three months later.

The militants struck again on August 31 with a near simultaneous bomb attack on 22 banks across the province of Yala, sending the entire security apparatus into a tailspin. At least 20 people were injured and one died from the attacks.

The September coup gave some hope for a policy change and a number of goodwill gestures were made, including an emotional public apology by Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont for the death of at least 85 people during and after a demonstration in Tak Bai two years ago.

Surayud has said he would be willing to talk to the insurgents and to listen to their demands.

He was not referring to the leaders of the long standing separatist movements who had taken part in a series of secret meetings with Thai officials on the island of Langkawi earlier in the year.

The premier wanted to talk to the new generation of insurgents behind the daily attacks but so far no one has surfaced to take up the offer.