The name Narathiwat means "Home of Good People," but residents in this town in Southern Thailand are deeply worried bad things are about to disturb the tranquil lives of rubber growers, fishermen and rice farmers.
Narathiwat escaped the Islamic uprising that erupted last Wednesday in three Muslim-majority provinces in southern Thailand, but fear is palpable here.
"Our village has been peaceful for so long. We never lost a chicken, and Buddhist and Muslims lived in harmony," said Uso Hambae, 54, a village chief in Narathiwat province.
"But now our school was burned and we have to increase our nightly patrols," he said.
More than 100 machete-wielding, suspected Muslim militants were shot dead in Wednes-day's pre-dawn attacks on heavily armed security posts aimed at seizing weapons. Three policemen and two soldiers were also killed.
It was the latest and most serious incident since a Muslim separatist movement, dormant the past two decades, flared up in January -- in Narathiwat.
In daring raids that stunned the country, gunmen killed four soldiers in a raid on an army weapons depot and torched 21 schools in Narathiwat province.
Since then, the government has issued conflicting statements about the latest chapter of a conflict that dates back centuries, when the kingdom of Pattani in southern Thailand ruled the south and parts of present-day northern Malaysia.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Saturday blamed the spate of violence on drug dealers, contraband smugglers and gunrunners, acting under the cover of separatism.
But Cabinet members and top military officials say they suspect the attacks are the work of true believers who have support from foreign militant groups.
The Bangkok Post newspaper, quoting an unidentified military source, reported on Saturday some of the militants were members of the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah (JI) group that seeks to establish a Muslim state across much of Southeast Asia.
The suspected mastermind of the 2002 Bali bombings and the JI operations chief in Asia, Hambali, was arrested in Thailand last year.
Unlike the movements of previous decades, the new generation of militants in southern Thailand does not have public leaders or written manifestos. They are not guerrillas in camouflage fatigues fighting in the jungle. And that's why parents, soldiers, teachers and officials are so confused.
"We have to suspend our classes for now," said a teacher at a pondok, or Muslim boarding school.
"How can we pray while it's going on like this? There's fire in our heart too," the teacher said.
Anger about the US-led invasion of Iraq may be a contributing cause. Last month, the Thai embassy in Sweden received a letter threatening attacks like those on Spain in retaliation for Thailand sending troops to Iraq.
The former military commander in the south, General Pallop Pinmanee, said in a March 31 interview that many of the insurgents were inspired by Muslim anger over the US invasion of Iraq and East Timor's long and eventually successful fight for independence from Indonesia.
It is perhaps no coincidence that the Thai army this week is deploying two fresh battalions in the south with experience in the UN peacekeeping force in East Timor, some of whom will be in mufti mingling with residents.
Officials said some of the attackers in Wednesday's uprising were as young as 10.
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