Thai Militants Adopting Al-qaeda Tactics: General

[george]

Thai militants adopting Al-Qaeda tactics: general

BANGKOK: -- Islamic separatists in the restive South are adopting Al-Qaeda's tactics, a top Thai general said Wednesday after a wave of gruesome beheadings and seemingly random attacks on civilians.

The increasingly bloody violence shows the growing Islamic influence on the separatists, General Watanachai Chaimuanwong said in an interview at his office in the prime minister's Government House compound.

The Muslim-majority region along Thailand's southern border with Malaysia has suffered outbreaks of separatist violence ever since Bangkok annexed the area a century ago.

But Watanachai, the top security adviser to army-installed Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, said that while previous generations of rebels were mainly motivated by nationalism, today's militants showed a greater tendency toward religious extremism.

"This is a group of young-turk militants who want to challenge the old groups. Their operations are more gruesome and more violent because they have imported those techniques from Al-Qaeda and the Taleban, with the goal of creating a pure Islamic state," he said.

"They want to create a state called Pattani Darusalam" which would include Thailand's Muslimmajority South and two northern states in Malaysia, he said.

-- AFP 2007-03-21