(BangkokPost.com)
An Austrlian news report this morning says that some Thai intelligence officers believe that the regional terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah and southern separatists planned and carried out the deadly New Year's Eve bombings in Bangkok.
"[O]peratives of the regional terror network Jemaah Islamiyah were directly involved in the New Year's Eve bombings in the Thai capital that left three dead and 40 wounded," said a report in The Australian newspaper this morning.
The newspaper, in a story datelined Bangkok by reporter Ron Corben, said the bombing plot originated in meetings last month in Kuala Lumpur and in Narathiwat province between agents of JI and Pulo, the Pattani United Liberation Organisation.
The news story directly quotes what it says are Thai intelligence reports which draw a direct link from JI and southern insurgents to the Bangkok bombs.
"Masae Useng, the head of the Jemaah Islamiah in Narathiwat province and Ruslan Yumuraenae, the commander of the Pulo Sabotage Unit had met in the (informant's) home in Kuala Lumpur towards the end of December 2006," the newspaper report quotes the paper.
Bomb materials came from Cambodia, the newspaper said.
The purpose of the bombing was to "commit acts of sabotage aimed at intensifying the dispute between the Government and the former regime," the report said.
"Such attacks would provide a significant boost to Separatist Front morale and would put the Siamese infidels off balance."
The commander of the sabotage unit was Lohmueli Yusoh, alias Rusdi Pohseng, a 38-year-old former Communist Party guerilla who had received military and sabotage training in Libya in 1983.
Authorities have offered a one million baht reward for Rusdi's arrest.
Ten "foot soldiers" - young insurgents - working in Thai restaurants in northern Malaysia were selected to plant the bombs.
Intelligence sources said the bombings were instigated by supporters of the former Thaksin administration during a meeting in late November on the Malaysian resort island of Langkawi.
