On a Saturday night in late August, the southern Thai provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, and Yala became the stage for more than fifty coordinated bombings and acts of sabotage — a scale of violence that speaks to long-simmering tensions in a region where separatist conflict has never fully quieted. Malaysia, whose northern state of Kelantan shares a border with these provinces, responded by urging its citizens to postpone travel there, a precaution born not of panic but of proximity. No Malaysians were harmed, yet the advisory reflects a truth older than any single incident: instability does n