Named by another suspect, he admits being involved in bomb and arson attacks and having guerilla training, say police
A teacher at an Islamic school, who allegedly planted bombs and admitted being the mastermind behind arson attacks in Thailand's troubled south, has been arrested after being linked to separatist violence which has killed 300 people this year.
The Thai army authorities said yesterday that Nimahamud Haji Samae, a 40-year-old teacher at two religious schools in Pattani province, had been arrested by soldiers on Monday after being named by another teacher, Waearong Woh, 23, who was detained last week.
'The suspect admitted he was a member of a Muslim separatist movement, the Pattani United Liberation Organisation and had been involved in many bomb attacks,' Lieutenant-Colonel Akom Pongprom said.
The army said in a statement he had planted bombs and set fire to state properties over the past three years.
Lt-Col Akom said Nimahamud had graduated from university in Indonesia. He confessed to having received guerilla training from 2002 till recently in Thailand's south and had planned six arson attacks.
Pattani police chief Major-General Paitoon Pattanasopon said the two were first arrested by soldiers authorised under martial law to detain suspects before court warrants were issued.
The government has accused teachers at Islamic schools in the Muslim-majority south of taking part in renewed separatist violence against officials and security forces.
Last month, it threatened to shut down 21 schools - five in Yala province, eight in Pattani and eight in Narathiwat, - and jail their owners if they did not stop 'fostering militancy' and indoctrinating students with anti-government sentiments.
The unrest in southern Thailand, where a low-key separatist insurgency was fought in the 1970s and 1980s, erupted on Jan 4, when nearly 400 M16 assault rifles were stolen in a raid on an army camp and dozens of schools were set ablaze.
On April 28, Pattani witnessed the worst of the upsurge in violence when troops and police shot dead 32 suspected militants holed up in a historic mosque after they attacked a police station.
Bangkok says it cannot pinpoint precisely what sparked the latest violence but says the largely Malay-speaking area - 1,100km south of Bangkok - needs a long-term development scheme.
Despite a pledge to spend US$300 million (S$513 million) on development projects in the next three years and the deployment of thousands of troops and police in the region - much of it under martial law - attacks on symbols of the predominantly Buddhist central government persist.
Police said three soldiers had been injured, one of them seriously, in a bomb attack on their truck during a night patrol in a village in Narathiwat province on Tuesday.
The bomb was planted by the side of the road and triggered by remote control as the truck passed by.
Thai Defence Minister Chetta Thanajaro was quoted last month as saying the problems in the south were so deep-rooted they would take a decade or longer to resolve.
'If we really want to see a sustainable
solution... I would say it would take at least 10 years,' he said in Pattani
town.