Word: muslims
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...that she has "one true friend." The 51-year-old Thai housewife strokes the object of her affection, caressing its cool curves. The recipient of the devout Buddhist's ardor? A .38-caliber Smith & Wesson pistol Jiranan carries wherever she goes in Thailand's troubled deep south, where a Muslim insurgency has resulted in roughly 4,000 deaths since it gained momentum in 2004. The handgun, though, isn't Jiranan's only trusted companion. As a volunteer in the Iron Ladies, an all-female civilian militia designed to protect Buddhists from Islamic extremists, she received military training...
...wire disquiet of Iraq or Afghanistan than the sunny image projected in tourist brochures. Nearly every day, violence - motorcycle bombs, shootings, arson attacks, beheadings - claims another life in Thailand's three southernmost provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, which, unlike the rest of the Buddhist-majority country, are 80% Muslim. The region was a Malay sultanate until the early 20th century when Thailand annexed it. While members of both faiths have been killed by Muslim militants, as a proportion of the population more Buddhists have perished. This year looks set to eclipse 2008 in terms of bloodshed. Victims...
...Local Muslims complain they have largely been left out of the government-sanctioned arms race, even if more than half of all deaths have come from their ranks. "If we carry guns, [the military] says we are insurgents," says one Muslim academic who declined to be named. "But if Buddhists do, then that's O.K. because they're just protecting themselves." (Some ethnic Malays concede they are scared of joining state-sponsored militias because insurgents might see them as collaborators and target them.) Racial discrimination continues to fester in Thailand's deep south. An Amnesty International report released earlier this...
...guns proliferate, there are also worrisome signs that some Buddhists are straying from a defensive posture into vigilante justice. In June, 11 Muslims were shot dead by a posse of gunmen while praying at the al-Furqan mosque in Narathiwat province. Official speculation first centered on Muslim radicals turning against their own. Later, though, police issued an arrest warrant for a Buddhist militiaman from the neighboring village, where a rubber tapper had been killed the day before...
...stabbed her to death. Wiens then turned his knife on el-Sherbini's husband, who was mistakenly shot by police in the scuffle. (He survived.) Recognizing a "special burden of guilt," the court sentenced Wiens to life in prison on Nov. 11. The case, which sparked protests across the Muslim world, has taken on a broader resonance. Outraged Muslims have dubbed el-Sherbini, who wore a hijab, the "headscarf martyr," making her a symbol of the hostility Muslims face in the West. Germany's Foreign Secretary, intent on heading off wider conflict, declared that the judgment "makes it very clear...