December31, 2005: The government has reduced the Islamic terrorist violence in the south. The killings and attacks peaked in the middle of 2005. Then the government sent thousands of additional police and soldiers to the three southern, Moslem, provinces. In addition to a different religion, the people in those provinces are different ethnic ethnically. The southerners thus resent migrants from the north, who are ethnic Thais (the southerners are Malay) and usually Buddhist. Now the government is using economic persuasion to reduce support for the Islamic terrorists. Villages that are violence free get more aid, and those that tolerate Islamic terrorism get none, and a lot of attention from the cops. Meanwhile, there are also the criminal gangs, who have long thrived on smuggling stuff across the nearby Malaysian border. This is a rough neighborhood, and the government does not want it to get any worse, and drive away the growing tourist trade.

December 26, 2005: Three more people were killed by Islamic terrorists in the south.