Muslim Hate of Transmitters
Rampaging Thai Muslims target transmitters
19/01/2006 - 09:05:14
Security forces in Thailand are today
investigating whether Muslim insurgents targeted mobile-phone transmitters in
Thailand’s turbulent south in response to government efforts to block them from
using mobile phones to detonate bombs.
In a rampage of violence, suspected Muslim militants yesterday burned more than
40 mobile-phone transmissions stations and antennae in four provinces of
southern Thailand, an area bordering Malaysia that is wracked by a Muslim
insurgency.
The attacks came amid increased efforts by the Thai government to stop militants
from detonating bombs in Thailand by mobile phone from across the border.
Officials have required all Thai users of mobile phones register their SIM cards
and are seeking cooperation from neighbouring Malaysia to block transmissions
from across the border.
“It is possible that they are angry about government measures to block them from
using roaming signals to trigger bombs,” said Colonel Somkuan Saengpatraneth,
spokesman for regional army headquarters.
He said security forces and telephone companies were investigating the attacks,
which occurred in Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat and Songkhla provinces.
Mobile-phone services in some districts were shut down by the attacks, which
appeared to target sites belonging to DTAC, the country’s second-largest service
provider, officials said.
At least 24 transmission sites in six districts of Yala province were set on
fire, said the province’s governor, Boonyasith Suwanarat.
The governor of Narathiwat province, Pracha Tehrat, said at least seven sites
there were attacked after he had received information that insurgents would try
to “create chaos”.
In Pattani, seven sites were attacked but the damage was minimal, said police
Major Somjit Nasomyon.
In Songkhla, which is adjacent to the three southernmost provinces and has been
spared most of the recent violence, at least four sites were set on fire, police
said.
Authorities were investigating a mobile telephone SIM card found yesterday at a
bombed site in Yala to determine if a phone was used to trigger the blast.
Earlier yesterday, suspected Muslim separatists fatally shot a police officer,
while a bomb wounded three soldiers and a teacher in separate attacks, police
said.
More than 1,200 people have died in the past two years in sectarian violence
that officials blame on Islamic separatists in Thailand’s southernmost,
Muslim-dominated provinces. Government efforts to curb the insurgency have been
largely unsuccessful.