Yala
21-year insurgency (7,700+ dead since 2004), Malay-Muslim separatist conflict, Feb 2024 peace roadmap stalled, rubber/palm oil economy under security constraints.
Yala enters 2025 in its 21st year of insurgency. The conflict between Thai security forces and Malay-Muslim separatists—principally Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN)—has killed over 7,700 people since 2004 across Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat. Car bombs, motorcycle IEDs, and targeted assassinations punctuate daily life; a June 2024 car bomb outside a Yala police complex killed one and injured 21.
Peace talks begun in 2013 produced a February 2024 roadmap, but BRN's political and military wings disagree on the region's future. Some factions view negotiations as collaboration with "Thai imperialist invaders"; violence escalates in response. Targets in 2024–2025 have included monks, a 9-year-old child, and a blind elderly woman—patterns suggesting the conflict has passed beyond strategic aims into nihilistic violence.
The economy runs on rubber and palm oil—agricultural commodities requiring cheap labor in a region where insecurity suppresses investment. Government allocates resources but development remains stunted. Military checkpoints and emergency decrees structure movement. By 2026, Yala tests whether two decades of counterinsurgency has created conditions for settlement—or whether the conflict has become self-perpetuating.