Thailand hires assassin to be new security adviser.

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Frustrated by their inability to pacify a Muslim insurgency and concerned about rising impatience toward their rule, Thailand's generals have named a former commando and self-described assassin as their top security adviser. "Diplomacy is not his strong point," Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn Univerisity, said of Pallop. "His expertise is to kill people and deal with things by force." Pallop also served as a guerrilla mercenary for the CIA along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the 1960s. But he is perhaps best known for his decision to raid the Krue Se mosque in southern Thailand in 2004, a controversial move that left 32 insurgents dead. The raid helped reignite the centuries-old conflict between Thai Buddhists and ethnic Malay Muslims. It is too early to tell how infuential Pallop will be in the goverment. But amid rumors of countercoups and maneuvering by Thaksin's allies, the generals seem to have calculated that they needed the skills of a master tactician. Pallop has been involved in three military coups and is alleged to have once plotted an assiassination against an army commander.