Security Tightened At Thai-malaysian Border

[george]

Security tightened at Thai-Malaysian border

NARATHIWAT, Dec 25 (TNA) – The Fourth Army Area Command, which is responsible for security affairs in Thailand's southern region, and several other government units today jointly launched a patrolling operation along the Su-ngai Kolok River in the country's southernmost province of Narathiwat in an attempt to prevent militants from crossing the common border and create unrest during the upcoming New Year holidays.

A ceremony to launch the joint patrolling operation this morning was presided over by Maj. Gen. Kwanchart Klaharn, the Acting Commanding General of the Fourth Army Command.

Military personnel who will participate in the operation include soldiers, marine police, provincial police, border patrol police, immigration police and customs officials.

The operation is aimed at preventing militants from crossing into Thailand and create unrest in the country's three troubled southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat during the New Year festival.

It is also aimed at preventing any attacks in the lead-up to the first anniversary of the country's southern unrest marked by a raid on a military camp in Narathiwat by militants who robbed sets of firearms from its arsenal in January.

Other objectives of the operation are to prevent goods and drug smuggling between Thailand and Malaysia, where smugglers have used their 95-kilometer long border river in smuggling the  contrabands.

A total of 10 small and large-sized patrol ships with well-armed security officers will patrol the river round-the-clock, while a number of security officers will patrol along its banks.

Intelligence officers in Malaysia's Kelantan state have also been asked to look for 46 militant leaders whom the Thai government have put the prize on their heads.

In a development related to a bomb explosion  outside a Siam Commercial Bank branch in Su-ngai Kolok yesterday, Dr. Khun Ying Porntip Rojanasunan, the Deputy Director of Central Institute of  Forensic Science, had sent a group of doctors and investigators to jointly investigate the scene scientifically.

Several fingerprints have been collected, and officials are now trying to find out whether the bombers have committed any crime earlier.

Meanwhile, Pol. Lt. Col. Somchai Thetnok, deputy police commander in Sungai Kolok, has dispatched plainclothes policemen to track down followers of Sueree Chaeni, one of the two dead victims in yesterday’s bombing, who are believed to be part of an insurgent unit that planted the bomb.

Police believed that the bombers had had committed several strikes in the deep South before yesterday's bombing.

In another incident, Pracha Terut, Governor of Narathiwat, issued a joint statement with the Narathiwat Teachers Federation, condemning the militants that had attacked teachers in all the 13 districts in the province.

The statement also urged people in the province to cooperate with state officials in tip-offs whereabouts of the militants so that they could be suppressed. (TNA)--E111, E002