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| Southeast Asia |
| Thai bombmaker escapes police dragnet |
| 2005-02-20 |
| Thai police narrowly missed catching the suspected maker of the first car bomb to explode in a year-long separatist uprising in the Muslim-majority far south, a senior police official said on Saturday. The 36-year-old Muslim man ran off when police raided his house on Friday afternoon, but the makings of bombs were found there and in an adjacent house, Lieutenant-General Tani Twidsi told Reuters. Four sticks of C4 plastic explosive were found in one house, and four bags of urea fertiliser, the main ingredient in the car bomb which killed six people and wounded a dozen in nearby Sungai Kolok on Thursday, were found in the other, he said. A younger brother, later taken for questioning by the army along with his mother, said the explosives and fertiliser belonged to his older brother, said Tani, the deputy commander of police in the south. "We've been keeping a close eye on him for more than a week" because he was a former communist who had a reputation as a bomb maker, he said. On Friday, police arrested a man near Sungai Kolok in a stolen car heading for the nearby Malaysian border and said he was also a suspect in the bombing. here have been different theories about which group might have ordered the latest bombing, the worst since the violence began in the provinces of Pattan, Yala and Narathiwat. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who has refused to consider separatist calls while promising aid and development to those shunning the rebel movement, said it was planted by relatives of hunted militant leaders. General Sonthi Boonyakarin, a top army commander in the region, said the Barisan Revolusi Nasional, or National Revolution Front, a group fighting the government, was responsible. But the governor of Narathiwat province said he was not so sure there was no foreign involvement. The attack on Sungai Kolok, a Narathiwat border town that draws tourists with its bars and brothels, worried neighbouring Malaysia and Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said southern Thailand was dangerous and Malaysians should not go there. "We are certainly worried about the latest development," the national Bernama news agency quoted him as saying. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 Everywhere there is Muslims, there is trouble. Thai authorities were facing 5 hits a day, last week. Its time to beat down these mutts, and do some cross-border work in the Malaysian pig-pen. |
| Posted by: IToldYouSo 2005-02-20 4:24:38 AM |