These men risked their lives on a daily basis, carrying out orders from their superiors who dispatched them on a so-called psychological-warfare mission to remote communities known to have been heavily infiltrated by insurgents. This type of mission usually means making friends with local youths, distributing gifts and initiating community development projects. These small contingents of lightly armed soldiers were sent unescorted into danger zones on a regular basis, which made them susceptible to roadside attacks.

These sort of reckless missions must stop pending a thorough review to assess their efficiency as a tool to persuade locals to cooperate with the government in suppressing the insurgency and restoring peace in the strife-torn region. No troops should be sent into combat zones without a proper escort. Generals sitting behind their desks in Army headquarters must rethink their strategies in dealing with what has now become a full-fledged unconventional war by insurgents.

They must understand that this war is unlike anything that the Thai armed forces have encountered before, that our troops are ill prepared for it and that we can no longer afford to continue pursuing wrong military strategies and peace initiatives.

Virtually all military leaders continue to characterise the situation in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat in the same terms that they had used to describe the 20-year jungle war against communists that ended in the mid-1980s with the mass surrender by communist insurgents.

The government won the war against communists through a combination of military actions, shrewd diplomacy to persuade China to sever ties with the Communist Party of Thailand, and the use of well-designed rural development programmes as a tool to win the hearts and minds of rural masses. The reconciliation process following the mass surrender was possible because even though communists had unsuccessfully tried to overthrow the government by force, they never denied the reason for being and legitimacy of the Thai state.

The Islamic militants/Malay separatists are different mainly because they have never recognised the legitimacy of the Thai state to rule over the three Malay-speaking provinces. Besides, the war waged by insurgents in the deep South was possible because a substantial section of the population there had been radicalised over the past decade or so, with Islam exploited by insurgents to recruit new members.

Up till now, the insurgents have been hugely successful both in mounting attacks on government forces and in terrorising the civilian population into submission. They are capable of staging ambushes against government forces, concealing their weapons and then blending into the civilian population to avoid detection and to plot their next attacks. Peace overtures on the part of the government and the military, including the attempt to persuade insurgent sympathisers to switch allegiance by offering them gifts and dangling community development funds, or offering amnesty to insurgents, will be futile.

Insurgents who are gaining an upper hand have no interest in surrendering. Their sympathisers are not inclined to abandon the separatist cause, because it looks like the insurgents stand a good chance of winning. Meanwhile, moderate Malay-speaking Muslim Thais who are trapped in the crossfire do not offer cooperation to the authorities for fear of reprisal.

The government and the military must realise they are now in a no-win situation. Unless they come up with the right combination of effective military strategies to suppress the insurgency and protect the civilian population, they may well be fighting a losing war. Above all, we as a society must find ways to persuade Malay-speaking Muslims to our side in Islamic terms that they can understand, such as to get them to discuss among themselves whether the jihadist ideology perpetrated by insurgents is justified under Koranic interpretation and Islamic law. For this, we need to enlist the help of moderate, peace-loving Muslims.