Repeating the name of God 70,000 times every day for 40 consecutive days was supposed to make Abdullah Akoh impervious to bullets and knives, but he decided not to take the chance.
He stayed at home when a group of fellow Muslim "Invincibles" took on the Thai Army in a failed separatist uprising on April 28 armed only with knives, their faith and a grievous sense of injustice.
PHOTO: AP
More than 100 were killed.
"I refused," said Abdullah quietly from a military hospital where he was being treated for wounds from a later gun battle with the authorities. "It was impossible against all their guns."
Having lost his liberty, his zeal and part of his spleen, Abdullah has finally decided to give up the armed struggle -- an academic decision given the handcuffs that shackled him to his bed at a military camp in this southern Thai province.
In an interview with AFP, Abdullah, 31, gave an insight into the motivation of the simple farmers and workers behind the insurgency that has left nearly 300 people dead from shootings, stabbings and bomb attacks this year.
The roots of the violence go back to Thailand's formal annexation of an ethnic Malay kingdom in 1902, sparking sporadic bouts of unrest over the following decades.
Officials believed they had successfully quelled the independence movement but it flared again in January this year. A raid on an army camp secured weapons for the depleted separatist arsenal, left four soldiers dead and started a new cycle of violence that continues almost daily in the provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat.
Abdullah was recruited to take up arms five years ago by a young and charismatic Islamic teacher, known as Teacher Soh, who played in the same football team. But the rubber farmer and Islamic studies teacher from Yala had needed only a gentle nudge. As a child he recalled militants emerging from their jungle hiding places to lecture villagers about the struggle.
He remembered with anger seeing the bodies of women and children he alleges were abused by Thai police during their repressive control of the south and the demonstrations that failed to bring justice.
"I saw the body of a woman who had been raped and had her throat cut," he said. "I heard her one-year-old daughter was hit until she died. This happened many times.
"We asked for justice but the government would just give the families a bit of money.
"It all came together. Teacher Soh told me the history, the background and all the events that had happened but I had heard many things and seen bodies."
There was only one AK-47 assault rifle to go between him and his five fellow recruits, so Abdullah started his military training under Soh with a piece of wood.
He took a vow of secrecy -- his family was not aware of what he was doing until he was shot. He knew few fellow militants because of a small cell structure designed to avoid detection and giving much away if their members were caught.
His first call to arms was on April 28 when Soh, a senior figure in the group working below an unknown commander, ordered the men, wearing trademark red headbands, to attack 11 targets, said Abdullah.
The men had been given a 20-page booklet, revealing how they would be protected by their faith, by using "cursed sand" to make roads look like the sea, the protective incantations and chanting certain words to make themselves invisible.
The uprising was a disaster.
"The reason 108 people were killed was because the 108 believed that they would be invincible," he said.
Abdullah saw pictures of one of his friends lying dead after the army assault on the ancient Krue Se mosque, the spiritual home of Muslims fighting for an independent homeland in the south.
Soh disappeared for a while, said Abdullah, but he eventually returned with new tactics. The 40-day incantation did not work; Soh gave Abdullah a handgun and orders to kill a soldier. With an accomplice, he lay in wait for a week before spotting a couple of soldiers arriving at a market by motorbike.
Abdullah, riding motorbike pillion, followed them and opened fire hitting one soldier in the back, killing him instantly before swinging around to finish off the second soldier who had fallen from his vehicle.
Instead the uninjured soldier fired back, hitting him three times.
"My friend just drove off. I was in a lot of pain and I just remember someone kicking me in the face."
Feeling betrayed by the movement and carefully groomed by the Army, Abdullah has rejected the militants and given the military details about his former comrades, although Soh and the few others he knew have all fled.
The military said the militants would now kill him if they could, but despite praising his "brave" actions, Abdullah still faces court for the killing of the soldier. He regrets it, but still supports the idea of an independent southern Thailand under traditional Islamic law. He has little idea what his own future holds.
"I just want to grow vegetables," he said.
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