Source: Royal Thai Police via Isara News Centre
My previous report on their figures are from here although that article states there were 867 deaths whereas there are 866 deaths based on the above figures. I should note, before you say how can you believe police figures, that Srisompob's figures point to 867 deaths - although the breakdown per month is different.
I am not so sure what you can make on the dramatic drop in deaths for December, particularly because of the floods and in other years, 2005, in particular there was a dramatic drop in the violence in December. However, it is clear that there has been distinct drop in the number of violent incidents since September. This has been trending down since September. Nevertheless, when you kill 8 soldiers in a single incident you can say the terrorists are becoming more efficient or you could say that the terrorists are having to stage daring and larger attacks, but because of the size of the attacks, more personnel are needed and they are riskier and lead to more arrests. I would say it is a mixture of both, but slightly more the later. There are still opportunities for the authorities to turn around the violence.
New: Asia Cable on lèse majesté
1 hour ago
What is an "incident" ?
That's the whole question... And this is why we should remain cautious about this kind of statiscal work.
The only "good" indicator if I may say is definitely the number of deads and woundeds in attacks.
And from this perspective, december figures is even higher than... january. Or even february.
So I think it's way too early to draw any conclusions.
Contrary to the cheap propaganda of the thai authorities (drugs, mafia, then Al Qaeda, "every thing is under control" etc.) the problem in the South is not solved.
Far from it.
The road side bomb in january plus the bombings "bali style" end of december (small explosion inside the club, then big one outside when people rush out) are there to... temper any kind of optimism.