More than 500 Muslim villagers gathered at southern Thailand's Sabaiyoi town March 18 to demand justice after a midnight attack on an Islamic school left two young students dead and eight wounded. Students were asleep at the boarding school when assailants threw grenades and strafed the building with automatic rifle fire. Unidentified assailants also threw a grenade into a local mosque, injuring 11, on March 15, the same day suspected Islamist militants killed eight Buddhist civilians in an attack on a van. Local authorities blamed the schoool-house attack on Islamist militants, but this is disputed by local residents.

From AP, March 16:

NORTHAMPTON - Maha Ghosananda, a Nobel Peace Prize-nominated monk who rebuilt Buddhism in Cambodia after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, has died.

Rear Admiral Paul Zukunft of the US Joint Inter-Agency Task Force-West claimed evidence that secret laboratories for producing methamphetamine are operating in areas of the Phiilippines where Maoist and Islamic rebels have a strong presence, and that the guerillas are being funded by the trade. "That's one of our biggest concerns," Zukunft told Reuters during a break in meetings with Filipino counterparts at the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA). "It's much easier to stop them at the source than waiting for them to go into global distribution," said Zukunft, based at US Pacific Command headquarters in Hawaii.

Eight Thai civilians—all Buddhists—were killed in the troubled south of Thailand when their van was shot upon by suspected Islamist guerrillas March 15. Thai security officials suspect that the attack was meant coincide with the founding of the National Revolutionary Front, a decades-old separatist group in the southern region of Patani.

Australia's military adventure in East Timor is starting to smell more like a small counterinsurgency war than a "peacekeeping" mission—if the world were paying any attention. From Catholic News, March 14:

Timor priest accuses Aussie troops
As fugitive Timorese rebel leader Major Alfredo Reinado calls for mediation by the Church, an East Timor priest has accused Australian troops of terrifying local villagers after a raid by the soldiers left a number of houses in ruins.

Australian "peacekeeping" troops killed four in a raid on rebels in East Timor March 4, but their leader Alfredo Reinado escaped. Reinado, who deserted the army last year and is wanted for his alleged role in deadly clashes that brought down the government, stole more than 20 automatic weapons in a raid on a police post, prompting President Xanana Gusmao to request his arrest by Australian forces. The exchange of fire followed a tense stand-off in the town of Same, where tank and helicopter movements were reported. (AP, The Australian, March 4)

Anti-war protesters clashed with police in Sydney Feb. 22 before the arrival of US Vice President Dick Cheney. Seven people were arrested as mounted police attempted to bar hundreds from marching through Australia's largest city, demanding Prime Minister John Howard pull troops out of Iraq. (Reuters, Feb. 23) Meanwhile, Australian troops in East Timor shot and killed a youth who was firing steel arrows at the soldiers as they responded to a disturbance at a refugee camp near Dili airport. Two Timorese civilians were also injured in the incident. Some 800 Australian troops are in East Timor following a request from the small nation's government last year after weeks of deadly violence. About 1,000 international police are also in East Timor as part of a UN mission. (The West, Australia, Feb. 23)

Thailand was shaken by a string of simultaneous terror blasts on the Christian New Year, and now again on the Chinese New Year. The Jan. 1 blasts in Bangkok are still murky, but the Feb. 17 blasts in the heavily Muslim south are claimed to be the work of Islamic militants. Few are making the connection, but could the date have been chosen because it marked the opening of the Year of the Pig—an animal thought to be propitious in Chinese astrology, but haram for Muslims? Interestingly, authorities in China have actually banned images of the pig from state television during the festivities, in the name of cultural sensitivity—a move that Alt.Muslim dismisses as "Throwing a (Pig) Bone to China's Muslims," a patronizing gesture aimed at underming the Muslim Uighur insurgency in China's far west. In Thailand, some arrests have been made, but little real information seems available. How devout could these supposed Muslim militants be if they "boosted their courage with narcotics and cough syrup"—which is just as haram as swine for the orthodox? From AP, Feb. 20: