Thai Muslim students look at their torched school in Narathiwat (AFP)

By Kazi Mahmood, IOL Southeast Asia Correspondent

KUALA LUMPUR, January 6 (IslamOnline.net) - Two bombs exploded late Monday, January 5, in predominantly Muslim South Thailand killing one policeman while martial law was declared in Pattani and two other provinces. The developments  forced neighboring Malaysia to step up border security.

The Thai policeman died when the bomb he was trying to defuse took off.

Former Thai separatists, however, denies that their members or those still continuing the separatist struggle in Southern Thailand are behind robberies and are turning to banditry, saying that most of the separatists are either in jail, in exile or has simply laid down arms.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has said it was unlikely the two blasts were perpetrated by the same people who set fire to 21 schools and raided a military camp, killing four guards in neighboring Narathiwat province Sunday morning.

On the other hand, Thailand is bound to send one of its most senior officials to hold talks with Malaysia following suspicions that those responsible for the attacks in Southern Thailand are hiding in Malaysia, Bernama news agency said Tuesday, January 6.

Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai is expected to fly into Kuala Lumpur Tuesday to provide the latest information on the attack and arms seizure at the Narathiwat Army Camp in southern Thailand.

His Malaysian counterpart Syed Hamid Albar said he had spoken to Sathirathai who will be coming as a special envoy of the Thai Prime Minister to exchange notes and information with him (Albar).

Thailand decided to impose martial law in parts of Southern Thailand following the weekend raids blamed on separatists reportedly turned bandits.

Thaksin admitted the raiders were not common "bandits'' and even acknowledged they had executed their plan of destruction in a well-coordinated manner.

But he said the bandits thrived on the authorities' weakness. The security agencies refused to coordinate with one another and intelligence warnings often went unheeded.

Local intelligence officials attributed the attacks to the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) and the Gerakan Mujahideen Islam Pattani separatist groups.

Masae Useng, a former Muslim teacher from Samphan Withaya school in Cho Airong, who has ties with the BRN, was probably involved in the attack on the military camp, they said.

Authorities has recently searched Masae's school. He is suspected of mobilizing and training young separatists.

Malaysian Borders Watched

Following Sunday violence and the bombing incident Monday, Malaysia took fresh steps to ensure heightened border security after it was informed by Thailand that those behind the incidents had disappeared along the Malaysian-Thai border.

The guns stolen in the arms heist are said to be hot items that could be smuggled through the border area that stretch from Perlis, Kedah and Kelantan, which represent the Malay-Muslim northern belt in Malaysia.

South Thailand is home to most of Thailand’s 4 percent Muslim minority that has close ties with Malaysia. A huge majority of the Muslims in Thailand are of Malay origin and their territories were once attached to a Malay kingdom that was dominant in the area.

Muslim rebels fought the Thai government up to the mid-80s when a serious military clamp down on separatists toned down the struggle.

Major arrests of the remaining separatists of the Pattani United Liberation Organization (PULO), with the help of Malaysia which assisted Thailand in the search for the rebels have since then crippled separatism in Thailand.

However, young Muslim men who hold both Thailand and Malaysian nationalities are suspected to be operating on their own, killing police and military officers who are accused by them of heinous crimes against their people in Southern Thailand.

Thaksin blamed Sunday's attacks on a Muslim group called the Mujahideen, known to operate from southern Thailand and Malaysia, said the BBC news service Tuesday.

The BBC's Kylie Morris in Bangkok says the latest attacks are a further set-back to the government, which is already defending itself against criticism that it has under-estimated the problems in the country's predominantly Muslim south.

The weapons stolen Sunday are to be sold to allied groups, including separatists in the Indonesian province of Aceh; Thaksin is reported to have said, according to the BBC and the Bangkok Post newspaper.

Thaksin blamed a lack of co-ordination between the police and the army for the weapons raid.

"The security forces, with more than 2,000 soldiers in the camp, they knew about the bandits looking for a big lot of weapons. But still they were negligent. They deserved to die," he said.

There has been sporadic violence in Thailand's five southernmost provinces - Songkhla, Satun, Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani - which has been attributed to Muslim separatists.

Thaksin has ordered a radical review of security and intelligence standards and told the authorities to arrest the culprits within seven days.

In the past, state officials assisted in weapons robberies but the arm of the law never reached them because inquiries fell short of bringing them to account, said the Nation newspaper on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Thai Defense Minister Thammarak Isarangkura na Ayudhaya has told the Fourth Army to establish a forward command post, possibly in Narathiwat, in response to Sunday's attacks, reported the Bangkok post Tuesday.

Gen Thammarak said the military needed reinforcement. "We must move and apply full-scale force."

The last time the Fourth Army set up a forward command in the South was in 1980. It set up a post in Surat Thani to suppress an insurgency. The Defense Minister believes the motive for Sunday's attacks was to steal military weapons.

For more than 10 years, martial law has been in effect in six districts of Narathiwat: Chanae, Cho Airong, Rangae, Waeng, Si Sakhon, and Sukhirin; and five districts of Yala: Than To, Bannang Sata, Yaha, Betong, and Kabang. However, the military did not enforce it seriously in the past.

Martial law has now been expanded to four more districts of Narathiwat: Rueso, Bacho, Takbai and Sungai Kolok; and another district in Yala: Raman.