| Submit your comments on this article |
| Southeast Asia |
| Arrests foil southernThailand bomb plot: police |
| 2004-06-29 |
| Authorities claim to have foiled a bomb plot to kill several public officials in the far South following yesterday’s arrest of five suspected Muslims insurgents in a joint pre-dawn raid by the military and police. Several items were seized from a rented house in Yala’s Muang district where the suspects were living, Defence Minister Chettha Thanajaro told a press conference at an Army camp in Pattani yesterday. The house is located about 200 metres away from an Islamic missionary centre.More than 100 officers were involved in the raid, which started at 5am. Among the seized items was a list of names of more than 30 local police and military officers believed to be targets for attacks and a detailed diagram of Yala’s football stadium, where Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra presided over the inauguration of the Thaksin League on Sunday, Chettha said. Other items seized include maps of Yala and Songkhla’s inner areas and business districts, documents speaking of "liberating the Pattani state", and a scrap of paper containing what is believed to be instructions for a bombing, he said. It is believed the suspects were involved in a number of recent bombings in the southern-border provinces and were plotting more attacks in the region, the defence minister said. The male suspects, aged between 19 and 24, were identified as Ismail Salae, Ismail Sa-i, Muhammad Sofian Manosa, Arafat Yunu, and Hanipo Mama. They are residents of Pattani, Songkhla and Narathiwat. Lt-General Pisarn Watta-nawongkiri, commander of the Fourth Army Region, told reporters at yesterday’s press conference that the military would refer to martial law in dealing with the five suspects. He said they would be interrogated and detained at an Army camp in Pattani. He warned those involved in attacks in the region to surrender by July 11 or face arrests by the military, which has been empowered to conduct searches and make arrests under martial law. The five suspects were also present at yesterday’s press conference but they were not allowed to speak to reporters. In Yala, a number of police officers whose names appeared on the list seized during yesterday’s raid, said they were startled to learn that they had become "targets". Captain Prasom Kuanoon, of Yala’s Muang district police station, said he had already taken safety precautions, such as looking under his car to see if a bomb had been planted, following attacks on public officials. Captain Jin Wannaboon, of the same police station, said he would be more careful now that he was one of the targets. Earlier in the day, Pisarn travelled by helicopter to a hospital in Narathiwat to visit six Marines injured in Sunday’s explosion at a football field near a Buddhist temple in the border province. One Marine was killed in the attack. Meanwhile, Ahmed Somboon Bualuang, an independent Muslim academic, said yesterday it appeared that perpetrators of violence in the deep South were inspired by Iraqi resistance groups which staged almost daily attacks on US-led security forces and civilians with American connections. He expressed concern that deep-South violence would continue to heighten if the government failed to tackle the problem at its root causes. The academic called on the government to urgently review its policy of taking a hard-line stance in the region. "The best way out is to tackle the problem peacefully. This is agreed and preferred by most of the residents in the area," he said. |
| Posted by:TS(vice girl) |