Thai South crisis: Insurgent threats prompt SIM check

[webfact]

SOUTH CRISIS
Insurgent threats prompt SIM check
The Nation

BANGKOK: -- National Police Chief General Adul Saengsingkaew is urging agencies to help police check SIM card registration information linked to suspected insurgents. Phone sellers were also asked to check applicants' documents strictly for registration of phone SIM cards.

The requests follow reports that suspected insurgents are buying phones with SIM cards registered elsewhere to create violence in the deep South.

Adul met yesterday with senior police at the Southern Border Provinces Police Operation Centre in Yala's Muang district to develop security policies and to follow up on national-security cases.

He said the idea to set up a subdistrict-level police station in this restive region was a good one, as it would enable police to provide closer security for locals.

Royal Thai Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Narong Pipatanasai, on a visit to Narathiwat, expressed concern that insurgent sympathisers might make trouble ahead of the October 25 anniversary of the Tak Bai incident and urged officers to be prepared.

On that day nine years ago, many protesters rallying outside Tak Bai police station to oppose the detention of six people died during a crackdown.

Police yesterday checked the fingerprints of three people killed and another wounded in a clash between security officials and suspected insurgents in Pattani's Thung Yang Daeng district. They said fingerprints collected from three bodies - identified as the alleged leader of the Paku group in Pattani, Sakariya Jehmae, 43, and two subordinates, Manusi Kasa, 29, and Adul-rosi Salae, 26 - showed they had carried out many attacks before.

The captured suspect Abdul-roman Sala, 26, is in custody.


-- The Nation 2013-10-17

[ChrisY1]

"asked to check applicants' documents strictly for registration of phone SIM cards."

How many SIM cards are issued each day/week/month in Thailand?

I'm sure the mafia run phone sellers will be diligent in this !!

[sunshine51]

The SIM registration & documents check was implemented a few years ago

in the troubled Southern Prov's. Seems that everybody involved is working

hard and the SIM reg & ID check implementation is going along as planned.

Mind you...it's pretty darn easy to trace SIM cards & calls made with them.

Typical hand washing in Southern LOS...

[flyingdoc]

Difficult to implement in this fast moving mobile world we live in now!

[chrisinth]

The last three SIM cards I have purchased (within the last year) haven't required any proof of purchase at all. All 3 from the provider's own shops.

Whereas I am not down South, the SIM cards will work down there.................

EDIT: Forgot to add that these are pay-as-you-go cards, no need for a contract.

Edited October 17, 2013 by chrisinth

[steveyinasia]

No registration of SIM from 711 in Bangkok, do you think these SIM's could not make it down South too.

[TheGhostWithin]

For those of you that have not been to the southernmost provinces before (Pattani, Narathiwat, Yala specifically) once you leave Hat Yai and enter Pattani, your signal will be blocked. Your SIM will be blocked until you register the sim under your details with the local authorities. If you do not registere.. mai mee san yan ni...

Your signal does not work the same as it does in Bangkok.. and we don't leave our phones turned on when we travel, because that sets off the roadside bombs intended for Army Radio frequencies..

That is the difference between the registration process down south and the purchase process for the rest of Thailand. As I have said many times it is another world all together to what you are all used to seeing, smelling and believing.