Unlike some other Muslim insurgencies, which have tied themselves to transnational organizations like Al Qaeda or the Islamic State, the militants in southern Thailand so far have focused more on localized grievances than calls for a global jihad.

Yet their ambitions for southern Thailand are hardly unified. Some militants have pushed for autonomy, while others have demanded outright independence. Others do not say anything at all, preferring to let the violence, which at its peak was claiming dozens of lives each month, speak for them.

The aim of much of the bloodshed, which overwhelmingly targets civilians, appears to be terrorism for its own sake, said Srisompob Jitpiromsri, the director of Deep South Watch, which monitors insurgent activity.

“The number of violent incidents has decreased over the past three or four years but the movement of insurgent cells is alive and well,” he said. “The military doesn’t know exactly whom to talk to, whom to negotiate with, whom it’s fighting, so it spends a lot of money on security with marginal, insignificant returns.”

Over the years, the central government has transformed the region into what feels like a giant occupation zone, with checkpoints, barbed wire and armored vehicles dotting a landscape of mosques, rubber plantations and palm trees. Around 60,000 Thai security forces are stationed in the three southernmost provinces.

To protect themselves from the insurgents, villagers, including Buddhists who were encouraged to move down south by economic incentives, have banded together in corps of armed volunteers. After receiving a modicum of military training, the volunteers are assigned to checkpoints. The homegrown militias are given names like “the eye of the pineapple,” in reference to the spots that pepper the fruit.