Thai military finds bomb-making camp in mountains

By CS Thana

BANGKOK

A Thai military task force has found a bomb-making site at an isolated southern mountain range allegedly used by insurgents to create and smuggle explosives, according to an official Thursday.

A high ranking official from the army's Internal Security Operations Command told Anadolu Agency that incendiary devices, shrapnel making material and explosive substances were found Wednesday afternoon in the Khao Tawe mountains in majority Muslim Narathiwat province.

"We're continuing our search in the surrounding area to see if we can find more of these sites," said the official, who requested anonymity citing ongoing investigations.

The combined army and police task force reportedly also discovered evidence, such as cooking equipment and medical supplies, indicating that the area was used as a makeshift camp for insurgents.

The task force was organized after an increase in violence over the month of April in the south, where rebels have waged a decades-old insurgency against the central Thai state.

On Tuesday, a motorcycle bomb exploded at a grocery store in southern Songkhla, killing one man and injuring a dozen other people.

Opponents of a proposed 2,200-megawatt coal power plant in the deep South have speculated that recent bomb attacks may be linked to the proposal.

Direk Hemnakorn told the Bangkok Post on Thursday that residents believe the bombings were related as insurgents fear that an influx of outside workers to the plant could wipe out the area's Melayu-Muslim identity.

"Both Thai state and Muslim insurgents have exploited conflicts over the coal-fuelled power plant in the area," said Hemnakorn, a school director.

The southern insurgency is rooted in a century-old ethno-cultural conflict between Malay Muslims living in the southern region and the Thai central state where Buddhism is considered the de-facto national religion.

Armed insurgent groups were formed in the 1960s after the then-military dictatorship tried to interfere in Islamic schools, but the insurgency faded in the 1990s.

In 2004, a rejuvenated armed movement -- composed of numerous local cells of fighters loosely grouped around an organization called the National Revolutionary Front, or BRN -- emerged.

The confrontation is one of the deadliest low-intensity conflicts on the planet.