Recent online activity by Southern Thai radicals highlight the emergence of a new ISIL-inspired threat. While promoting autonomy for the Muslim majority provinces online radicalisation has the potential to become a precursor for real world violence.

The Southern Thai insurgency has been a thorn in the flesh for the Thai government for decades. Spikes in violence are not uncommon and the region has been constantly on high security alert. More recently in the last month, there has been a spike of a different kind. Thai Muslim separatists have rather precipitously become prominent on social media platforms such as Facebook. Numerous videos and messages propagating autonomy from Thailand are constantly being posted online and shared at an accelerated rate. The theme of these posts calls for “Fathoni Merdeka” or Freedom for Pattani.

… Vikram Rajakumar is a Senior Analyst at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.