Insurgents planning attacks in Pattaya

[Neo]

December 23, 2004: AP: Indonesia Insurgents Planning Attacks

 

Terrorists are plotting attacks next year at tourist resorts across Thailand, according to documents found in the house of a fugitive leader of the country's Islamic insurgency, a senior security official said.

 

The rebels also plan to turn three Muslim-dominated provinces in Thailand's south into a base for international terrorist groups, the official told The Associated Press in an interview on Thursday.

 

The plans indicate the insurgents want to broaden a conflict in the south that has killed more than 570 people this year, and fuel concerns that their cause is gaining support among Islamic extremists outside the country.

 

Gen. Kitti Rattanachaya, a senior security adviser to Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, said the seized documents indicate the separatists want to escalate their fight against the Buddhist central government next year.

 

"The situation will be terrifying as the terrorists open war on all fronts to divert attention from the southern area," Kitti, a former army commander in the south, told the AP.

 

He said the documents show that in 2005, the militants plan to attack "soft targets" such as the tropical beach resorts of Pattaya and Phuket, which draw tourist from around the world.

 

The documents were seized earlier this year from the house of Masae Useng, a former Islamic school teacher who the government accuses of masterminding a separatist plan for Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat provinces, which border Malaysia.

 

Officials have said previously that the separatists have threatened to attack tourists sites, but have not said where the information came from.

 

Thaksin's government has struggled to quell violence in the south that has swelled since Muslim militants early this year rekindled a decades-old dream of an Islamic state separated from Buddhist-dominated Thailand.

 

Most of the deaths have been police and local government officials killed in drive-by shootings and small bomb blasts, while scores of militants have died in crackdowns by security forces who are accused of brutality.

 

Kitti said last year's arrest in Thailand of al-Qaida-linked terrorist suspect Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, proved that international extremists had operated in Thailand for some time.

 

Hambali, a leader of the Southeast Asian terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah, visited southern areas three times before his arrest in the central city of Ayutthaya, Kitti said.

 

Jemaah Islamiyah had cells in several Southeast Asian countries and allegedly had training camps in Philippines and Indonesia before a regional crackdown after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States crippled its operations.

 

Kitti said southern Thailand was a favorable for a hub of pan-Islamic extremism than the southern Philippines or Indonesia's Aceh province, where Muslim rebellions have long flared.

 

He said more than 3,000 Thai Muslim militants had received military training over the past seven years and thousands of stolen or illegally purchased weapons have been stockpiled.

[jitagawn]

I have been thinking about this for a while now... maybe 12 months or more...and out comes this news...UGH!This is the direction they are going and using LOS as a base.

Some of my friends in the intelligence gathering

sector here in LOS hinted earlier this year about these same issues.Common sense and the general international mess point in this same direction.No thanks to Bush and Toxin

Makes the early closing and general Sanook Thailiban movement seem pretty unimportant.

Well lets wait and see. I mean I hate to be a pessimist but I have a bad feeling in my stomach about this...

[Guest]

The article is from the Associated Press and was featured in the Asian Wall Street Journal.

 

When you look at the way the current government is handling matters in the South, none of this is really a surprise.

[Guest]

on the other hand, it might still be the same sort of inteligence that confused a school class on an outing with guerillas in a malaysian training camp.

 

sorry, i just can't keep laughing about the latest blunder in thai foreign politics. i really wonder how the government is gonna manage to get them out of the shit now with those photos.

[elef]

Hi Neo,

 

same warning was issued some months ago and before that after the Bali bombing. A guerilla war - which a better description of the muslim terrorism in Thailand - is based on a broad popular support. Such you can find in deep south and in some areas of Bangkok, but not in Pattaya or Phuket so this is IMO BS.

 

elef

[jitagawn]

Yes But the concept is that they will probably bring their issues and BOMBS to other areas to de-stabalize the governemnt and screw up tourism. Popular support or not.

[elef]

Hi jitagawn,

 

I don't think so, thai terrorists are not suicidal so they need a popular support in the place they plan to attack. Also you have a problem with logistics - driving from deep south to Phuket is at least 12 hours, to Pattaya 36 hours......

 

Bangkok still is possible!

 

elef

[limbo]

Who said that it's Thais carrying this out?

 

I think it's real and very scary scenario.

[elef]

Hi limbo,

 

if it's not thai there's no broad popular support....

 

If the terrorists are international they don't attack in Thailand at all as Thailands role in a global picture is too small, such terrorists will attack bigger targets!

 

elef

[elef]

Just imagine the article:

 

400 DEAD IN TERRORIST ATTACK IN PATTAYA

 

200 sextourists from Europe, China, Middle East and USA and 200 sexworkers were killed in a bomb attack against a disco in Pattaya last night.

 

Church and political leaders around the world welcomed the attack as a first step to stop prostitution world-wide. If the victims were innocent why did they choose to go to this modern Sodom?