BRN Mounting Serial Bomb Plot in Southern Thailand: Security Official

A Malaysia-based leader of the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), a southern Thailand separatist group, is orchestrating a serial bomb plot in the country’s restive Deep South region, a senior security official told BenarNews.

Thai intelligence has detected a planned BRN mission to bomb “high net-worth” commercial targets in Thailand’s three southernmost provinces – Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala – as well as nearby Songkhla province, an officer with the security forces, who asked not be named, said Monday.

Doonloh Wae-mano, a 60-year-old member of the BRN’s supreme council who is also known as Pohsuloh, is the alleged mastermind of the plot to launch car and motorcycle bomb attacks on five targets, the official said.

Doonloh is coordinating the plot from his base in Kelantan, a Malaysian state that lies across the border from Narathiwat. Young supporters of the BRN in the Deep South – known in Malay as Permudor – have picked the targets and will be carrying out simultaneous bombings, the source said.

“They are ready and awaiting a go-ahead signal. The security forces, however, have no indication when,” the officials said without being more precise.

Tense atmosphere

The alleged bomb plot was revealed three days after the BRN marked its 55th anniversary on Friday.

In anticipation of an uptick in insurgent attacks around the anniversary, police and security forces in the Deep South last week mobilized additional security personnel to guard seven districts at risk of being attacked, Police Col. Triwit Sriprapa said.

Security forces were watching out for 10 vehicles identified as potentially being rigged with bombs. Officials also circulated images of the suspicious vehicles among the public.

Reports of the shootings deaths of three men in a trio of incidents in the region were reported Friday, but it wasn’t clear whether insurgents carried out the shootings in two of the three cases.

Yet more violence was reported within the past 48 hours.

On Sunday, Anus Kama-useng, 29, a resident of Yala province, was shot in the back of the head as he rode his motorbike with a friend in Raman district, police said.

Five gunmen on two motorcycles stopped the pair and opened fire on them, injuring Anus, who later died at a local hospital. His friend managed to escape.

On Monday, a female vendor, Demoh Makea, was shot dead as she rode a motorcycle to a market in Baan Bayo village, in Narathiwat’s Ra-ngae district.

Police have yet to pinpoint a motive in either shooting.

But security officials suspect that an M-67 hand grenade found along Route 3408 in Yala later on Monday belonged to a group of rebels preparing for an attack.