Dep PM contradicts police, says bombings not linked to Muslim insurgency
Last month's bombings in Thai tourist towns were not linked to Muslim separatists, Thailand's defence minister said on Thursday, contradicting the police.
There has
been a series of bomb attacks in the central and far south, including
coordinated bombings in tourist towns in August that killed four Thai
people and wounded dozens, including foreigners.
Analysts
say separatist insurgents in the country's three southern
Muslim-majority provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani bordering
Malaysia were behind the attacks.
Tourist towns in
the central south have for years been spared any spill-over of violence
from the deep south and analysts say the government is loath to blame
the coordinated bombings on southern Muslim insurgents because of fear
of damagin
g
tourism in the predominantly Buddhist country.
So far, two suspects have been arrested in connection with the tourist-town attacks.
"Even
though the arrested suspects were from the southern provinces this is
not an expansion of the insurgency and not related to southern
violence," Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan said at an event outlining the military government's achievements since a May 2014 coup.
His comments contradicted a police statement last month linking the tourist town attacks to separatists in the far south.
Thailand and Malaysia on Friday agreed to consider building a border wall to combat transnational crime and smuggling.
More
than 6,500 people have died - the majority of them civilians - since
2004 in fighting between Malay Muslim rebels and Thai security forces
stationed in the area.
Violence in the three southern provinces had decreased by 60 percent since the junta took power, Prawit said.
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