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PM tells Thailand to brace for more bombs
2007-01-04
Army-installed Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont told Thailand on Thursday to prepare for a repeat of the bomb attacks that killed three people in Bangkok on New Year's Eve and ignited fears of a year of political violence. "I would like to ask our brothers and sisters to brace themselves for a life-threatening thing like this for a while," Surayud told the National Legislative Council, which is acting as a parliament in the wake of a September 19 military coup. He gave no details. His comments were likely to keep the 9 million inhabitants of the sprawling capital on edge after a string of bomb hoaxes and scares since the New Year. Local media reported false alarms at a government office and major shopping mall on Thursday. The identity of those behind the bombings, which knocked 4.5 percent off the stock market in its first two trading days of 2007, remains a mystery although post-coup ministers are pointing the finger at dissident soldiers and police. However, the government has provided no evidence to back up its claims, which most Thais interpret as implicating ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, now in exile in Beijing, and his allies still in the country. Defense Minister General Boonrod Somtat continued to rule out foreign terrorist groups and Muslim militants fighting Bangkok's rule in the far south, despite some similarities in style. "So, there are only those inside the country left -- the civilians, police and armed forces both in khaki and green," he told reporters. "Intelligence puts 90 percent weight on political issues. There is a political group in which a few people have the potential to do such a thing," he said, without elaborating. "People who can handle this involve civilians, police and military officers." Thaksin, a former police lieutenant-colonel, has denied any involvement in the blasts, which prompted the United States, Britain and Australia to issue travel advisories to its citizens. WHAT EVIDENCE? Diplomats said a Foreign Ministry briefing on Thursday had failed to provide much by way of reassurance or answers. "There was no evidence whatsoever," one diplomat said. "It was not exactly enlightening." Ministry spokesman Kitti Wasinondh told a news conference investigators were struggling to find witnesses and that much of their work centered on security footage and forensics. "It might be some time for the results of that to come," he said. Security analysts said it was impossible to rule out completely the groups behind the campaign of violence in the three southernmost provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani, the only Muslim-majority parts of overwhelmingly Buddhist Thailand. Since their separatist campaign began with a raid on an army barracks on January 4, 2004, more than 1,800 people have died in daily shootings and bombings. On Thursday, a bomb in Yala slightly wounded two soldiers, police said. But the violence has never moved outside the immediate vicinity of the Malay-speaking region which Bangkok annexed a century ago. Although many of the bombs in the far south have used ammonium nitrate fertilizer as explosive -- as did the Bangkok bombs -- analysts said their wide geographical spread across the capital suggested a different hand at work. "This has to be in some fashion linked to the former regime -- but that's such an enormous pool of people," said security analyst Brian Dougherty of Hill and Associates in Bangkok. (Additional reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat)
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