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Counter Terrorism Operations Center

Thailand drafted a new Counterterrorism Act, which aimed to integrate existing terrorism-related laws into one document. Thailand continues to apply the 2017-2021 National Counterterrorism Strategy for the prevention of and response to terrorist attacks, but details of the strategy have not been made public. Under the strategy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs maintains plans for collaboration with foreign governments. Thailand’s law enforcement authorities demonstrated some capacity to detect, deter, and respond to terrorist incidents. Multiple entities including the Royal Thai Police, the Department of Special Investigation, and components of the Thai military have law enforcement responsibilities on CT cases. Interagency cooperation and coordination were sporadic, information sharing was limited, and the delineation of duties between law enforcement and military units with CT responsibilities was unclear.

Security services monitored persons, including foreign visitors, who espoused controversial views. An American academic reported that he was detained temporarily by the Immigration Police when leaving Thailand on 10 February 2019. He said he learned that during his detention he was on a list of approximately 30 researchers “on society, culture, politics” for whom the authorities wanted to know whereabouts and personal contacts. The academic said his detention was likely the result of his signing a petition supporting four protesters from Chiang Mai University. They had been charged with organizing an unlawful political gathering for holding a banner protesting the heavy police presence at the 13th International Thai Studies Conference in 2017. The case against the protesters was dismissed in December 2018 after the revocation of the NCPO order under which they were charged.

There is a perceived lack of coordination between the three main Thai intelligence agencies – the national intelligence agency, the special branch of the police department and the armed forces security centre – as well as a lack of expertise among Thai authorities in areas where international terrorist groups are active.

The latest strategy includes old priorities and new issues, particularly those related to monarchy, the separatist movement in southern Thailand, political division in Thailand, food and resource-based security and threats from extremists.

The last category is something new. Thailand used to have a naive view that it did not have enemies and it is never the target of any group. As a result, the country should remain open to welcoming foreigners. However, the Erawan blast changed this stereotyped thinking, prompting all agencies to improve their knowledge of terrorist or extremist groups with contacts and sleeper cells inside the country. With a proliferation of non-state actors, especially individuals and groups with local and foreign networks, Thailand's future security has been severely compromised.

In the past, intelligence agencies focused on counter-insurgency, mainly against communist and separatist groups. Beginning in 2000, most intelligence activities were narrowly aimed at political and social groups that impacted on domestic stability and development. For instance, it was no secret that the National Security Council, under the Thaksin and Yingluck administrations, dwelt on domestic issues which required massive human and financial resources to track down dissidents and troublemakers. Furthermore, the attack on a marine base in Narathiwat in April 2004 effectively shifted the long-standing benign situation to the current daily violent conflict.

Since then, intelligence agencies have intensified their operations in the South with burgeoning budgets to prevent future unrest. For the time being, the Thai security community is still reluctant to identify insurgent groups in southern Thailand as terrorist perpetrators, as is the practice in other countries.

Interestingly, only recently the government has changed the use of "phu koh kham mai sangom" - persons who instigate trouble - to "phu kho hed roon-raeng" - persons who cause violent situations. This sense of denial is still prevalent among the security apparatus for fear that labelling local insurgents as terrorist groups would only open the floodgates for outside intervention.

Changing mindsets, and employing better intelligence officials, through security sector reform and efficient immigrant control would be the best possible way to counter negative trends that threaten the country.

After the bombing at the Erawan Shrine on 17 August 2015, which killed 20 people and injured 125, numerous questions were asked about the overall capacity - both human and institutional - of Thai intelligence agencies in the face of new threats from extremists and terrorists and non-traditional sources, such as cyberspace attacks emanating from local and foreign networks of individuals and groups.

Since the September 11 attacks in the US, Thailand has been listed as one of the top rendezvous places for ill-intentioned elements to plan their attacks. Some would go even further and view this country as a possible recruiting place for potential extremists.

The country's central location and easy access, coupled with an inefficient immigration control system, has encouraged individuals and groups shunned by other countries to come to Thailand. Some have successfully used the country as "sleeper cells" and a "strategic planning centre".

Top news concerned the utter failure of intelligence and the loose immigration regime in detecting and recording dubious persons visiting this country, especially persons entering through the land border across Cambodia. Thailand has well over 80 permanent border checkpoints with four neighbouring countries - Malaysia, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.

For instance, the investigation of the Erawan bombing and arrests of various suspects demonstrated these shortcomings. It took the investigators two days of "lom sao" operation - literally cutting down electricity concrete poles - to identify the first suspect in the bombing. It refers also to a tedious search effort of going through all threads of mobile calls made before and during the days of bombing. Recently the Immigration Bureau agreed to provide its data base to the Special Branch Police. Hopefully in the near future all government agencies will be linked simultaneously on shared bio-data.

That identity-check operation would be only a click away if Thai immigration and police were linked through an online and real-time biometric data system. Thailand has yet to use this system for identification of foreign visitors. Both Malaysia and Cambodia have already installed such a system. The Prayut government has made tightening of immigration control its top national agenda as well as eradicating corruption in the bureau where human trafficking and illegal immigrants are linked.

Thailand experienced no attacks attributed to transnational terrorist groups in 2019 and violence was restricted to attacks attributed to ethno-nationalist insurgents in the country’s restive southern region. Overall, the number of insurgent terrorist attacks and related fatalities decreased from the previous year; however, a November 5 attack at a security checkpoint in Yala killed 15, making it the single deadliest attack attributed to southern insurgents since 2004. Attacks in 2019 were primarily confined to Thailand’s southernmost provinces, although a set of coordinated small-scale explosions in Bangkok in August is widely believed to be linked to the Deep South insurgency. Terrorist methods primarily included shootings, arson, IEDs, and VBIEDs.

Thailand drafted a new Counterterrorism Act, which aims to integrate existing terrorism-related laws into one document. Thailand continues to apply the 2017-2021 National Counterterrorism Strategy for the prevention of and response to terrorist attacks, but details of the strategy have not been made public. Under the strategy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs maintains plans for collaboration with foreign governments.

Thailand’s law enforcement authorities demonstrated some capacity to detect, deter, and respond to terrorist incidents. Multiple entities including the Royal Thai Police, the Department of Special Investigation, and components of the Thai military have law enforcement responsibilities on CT cases. Interagency cooperation and coordination were sporadic, information sharing was limited, and the delineation of duties between law enforcement and military units with CT responsibilities was unclear.