Bangkok blames Cambodia to be the source of smuggled weapons into southern Thailand

Blast hurts two soldiers guarding teachers

Two soldiers guarding school teachers were injured yesterday morning when a roadside bomb exploded. The incident occurred as the leader of one of the world's largest Muslim organisations visited on a peace mission.

Published on July 27, 2007
The Nation (Thailand)

Sgt-Major Chanat Phoo-thongtip and Private Kittikhun Chaiyaset were wounded when a bomb detonated on a back road in Khok Pho district. The soldiers were part of a security unit that included four police officers, all of whom escaped injury.

The incident came as Prof Din Syamsuddin, chairman of Muhammadiyah, Indonesia's second-largest Muslim organisation, was making his second visit to the region to encourage more people-to-people ex-changes between Muslims and non-Muslims of both countries.

Syamsuddin met with the chief of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre, Pranai Suwannarat, the governors of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat and Islamic religious leaders from five southern border provinces.

Syamruddin encouraged local communities to work for peace.

In a related development, Army spokesman Colonel Acra Thiproch said 154 people were being held under the emergency law that permits detention without trial. Authorities believe the individuals to be insurgent sympathisers and some militants.

They were detained in an ongoing sweep through pockets known to harbour insurgents.

He dismissed suggestions they were being mistreated and added that members were permitted to visit regularly.

Meanwhile, Her Majesty the Queen ordered the Royal Household Bureau to send rice and dried food to some 350 monks who arrived in the region yesterday for this year's Buddhist Lent. General Napol Boontab, director of royally sponsored projects, said 350 monks travelled to stay at temples in Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat and Songkhla to support Buddhists there.

The insurgency has claimed more than 2,400 lives since January 2004 and forced monks and laymen to relocate.

Meanwhile, in Nakhon Ratchasima, Ninth Region police commissioner Lt-General Chumpon Perngsiri said military weapons left over from decades of civil war in Cambodia continued to enter southern Thailand.

Prices for automatic weapons are about Bt4,000. The weapons are smuggled along the border mostly by pickup. Weapons are concealed, sometimes in coffins, he said.

Tea Banh on Cambodia providing weapons to Sri Lankan rebels: Deny! Deny! Deny! ... and more Deny!

July 25, 2007
Cambodia denies providing weapons for rebels in Sri Lanka

Cambodian Minister of Defense Tea Banh has denied report that Cambodia was a source of weapons for Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam, local press reported on Wednesday.

The report is entirely groundless, and there is no authentic evidence to prove it, the Cambodia Sin Chew Daily quoted Tea Banh as saying.

The weapons which belong to the Cambodian government are all in the country, he said, adding that nobody will export them to foreign countries.

The minister made the comments in response to recent reports that Cambodia remains a significant source of weapons for Sri Lanka's separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam.

The Jane's Intelligence Review said on its website on Thursday that "Cambodia is one of the most significant single source of weapons for the insurgent group".

Source: Xinhua

Khieu Kanarith denies Khieu Sopheak's earlier admission of illegal arms supply from Cambodia to Sri Lankan rebels

Cambodia Denies Role in Sri Lanka Weapons Supply

Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
23 July 2007

A government spokesman Monday denied a report that Sri Lanka's grinding civil war was still significantly supplied by weapons coming from or through Cambodia.

The report, in the well-regarded Jane's Intelligence Review, claimed the Tamil Tigers, a separatist group fighting the Sri Lankan government, were supplied through Cambodia.

"Cambodia is one of the most significant single sources of weapons for the insurgent group," Jane's Intelligence Review said in an online report last week, Agence-France Presse reported.

The Review did not name any sources, AFP reported.

Terrorism experts told VOA Khmer recently that Cambodia acts as a hub for weapon shipments, especially to Sri Lanka, but for other countries in the region as well.

Spokesman Khieu Kanharith Monday denied these reports.

"It is regretful, because I've always respected Jane's Intelligence Review," he said. The magazine "might be able to deceive some, but I am a spokesman, and I understand a lot of things."

He urged an inspection of the serial numbers on the weapons to prove where they come from.

"In Cambodia we have computers, and we register all those weapons, where they are, what year, and we would find them now," he said. "Jane's should not deceive those who don't know anything about it."

The Tamil rebels have been fighting for a separate state since the 1970s and are considered a terrorist group by the US, the UK, the European Union and India, among others.

The Tamil Tigers receive weapons from Afghanistan, Libya, Turkey and the Ukraine, as well as Southeast Asia, the Review reported.

Cambodia has acknowledged in the past a role in the supply of weapons to separatists, but Khieu Kanharith said Monday Cambodia has destroyed most of the weapons left over from its own civil wars.

Tamil Tigers still getting arms from Cambodia: report

LTTE soldiers in Sri Lanka. Tamil Tiger rebels are still getting weapons smuggled from Cambodia, which are fuelling spiralling unrest in Sri Lanka, a security journal reported. (AFP/File/Prakash Singh)

Mon Jul 23, 2007

PHNOM PENH (AFP) - Tamil Tiger rebels are still getting weapons smuggled from Cambodia, which are fuelling spiralling unrest in Sri Lanka, a security journal reported.

"Cambodia is one of the most significant single sources of weapons for the insurgent group," Jane's Intelligence Review said in a report published online last week, without naming any sources.

Interior ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak acknowledged Monday that some weapons might still be getting to the Tigers, but said any smuggling would be small-scale.

"There could be some bad people involved.... We would like information to lead us to the offenders," he told AFP.

"We are victims of weapons, so we don't want people in other countries to suffer the same crisis," he said.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have been fighting Sri Lanka's government for an independent homeland since the 1970s in a conflict that has claimed more than 60,000 lives.

Weapons from Cambodia had filled Tiger arsenals in the past, but officials here had assured the Sri Lankan government that the arms trade has stopped.

Cambodia remains awash in arms after decades of civil war. But the government has made efforts to reduce its caches, destroying about 230,000 weapons so far.

Still, porous borders and poor policing have made Cambodia an attractive base for traffickers of various kinds of contraband.

Cambodia remains a significant source of weapons for Sri Lanka's separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

July 23, 2007
Cambodian official admits possible small-scale leakage of weapons

Cambodian official has admitted that some weapons may leak out of the kingdom and if such smuggling occurred, it was likely not large scale, English newspaper Cambodian Daily reported on Monday.

The government has made every effort to shut down illegal weapons trade, Interior Ministry spokesman Lieutenant General Khieu Sopheak was quoted as saying.

"There could be some individuals" involved in smuggling of weapons, said Sopheak, adding that "we would be happy to get information to lead us to the offenders."

Sri Lanka officials present evidence of arms smuggling from Cambodia several years ago, but it has since praised Cambodia's anti-smuggling efforts, he said.

The general made the comments in response to the recent reports that Cambodian remains a significant source of weapons for Sri Lanka's separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam.

Foreign magazine the Jane's Intelligence Review said on its web on Thursday that "Cambodia is one of the most significant single source of weapons for the insurgent group," adding that its weapons also come from elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

Source: Xinhua

VN reaps what it sows: Guns used by the VC and invading VN army in Cambodia are now used in robberies in Vietnam

A jewelry store in HCM City, the site of a recent armed robbery

23/07/2007
HCM City to establish special robbery unit

VietNamNet Bridge – In a recent meeting, Deputy Chief of the HCM City Police Phan Anh Minh said if everything went well, the municipal police will premier its robber unit this August.

According to Colonel Phan Anh Minh, Minister of Police Le Hong Anh and HCM City People’s Committee’s Chairman Le Hoang Quan has approved a plan to establish a “quick reaction” unit and a robbery team for the city.

Mr. Minh said that because of particularly crowded conditions of streets in the city, the new robbery unit would be different from its predecessors. In the past, special robbery police often shot while chasing suspects.

Nowadays, however, the best method is to discover, prevent and capture suspects. Thus, providing the new unit with modern communication equipment is considered the most important step.

According to Mr. Minh, special police forces’ weapons must be small and multi-functional. As for the recent increase in the number of armed robberies, Colonel Phan Anh Minh said, “The increase in serious robberies has been predicted. Our fault is that we were unable to prevent and investigate them on time.”

In HCM City, police forces are now worrying about how to monitor the use of military weapons. Most of the weapons used in crimes come from Cambodia and cost only several million dongs.

Another potential dangerous source is weapons kept by veterans and military men as keepsakes. “There have been cases when relatives of retired officers used their weapons to commit crimes,” said Phan Anh Minh.

Source: Tuoi Tre

As Thai economy worsens, robbers target gold shops [using cheap guns allegedly smuggled from Cambodia]

A Thai policeman stands guard at a gold shop in Chinatown of Bangkok (Photo: AFP/File Pornchai Kittiwongsakul)

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Nantacha Kanchornkijtrakul used to leave the security at her suburban Bangkok gold shop to male relatives she trusted with the handgun hidden under the counter in case of a robbery.

BANGKOK (AFP) - But after a string of gold heists across Thailand, the 37-year-old decided she needed to learn how to handle a gun herself.

"I had thought about going to a firing range for a while, but I decided this was the time to learn, for the sake of my own safety and my property," said Nantacha, who has run her gold shop for six years.

So she and four female relatives decided to join a one-day gun training workshop organised by the Thai police in Bangkok's southern suburbs.

Police say gold robberies are on the rise, leading them to organise gun training courses and other security services for gold shops around the capital.

Most of the robbers do not appear to be professional crooks rather than ordinary people driven by desperation amid an economic slowdown, said Lieutenant Colonel Aek Aungsananont.

"We arrested one robber who admitted that he stole gold after losing 50,000 baht (1,500 dollars) gambling on a football match," said Aek, police commander for Thailand's central region which includes metro Bangkok.

In addition to gun training, police in nearby Ayutthaya province have also taught gold traders how to use walkie-talkies to quickly contact police in an emergency.

"Walkie-talkies allow gold shop owners to reach police much faster than using the telephone. It allows police who are on duty nearby to reach the scene and track down the robber," said Lieutenant Colonel Sombat Chuchaiya of Ayutthaya police.

Five gold robberies were reported around Bangkok last month, with arrests made in three cases.

Robberies in general also appear to be on the rise, with 5,823 robberies of all types reported in the first four months of this year, police said.

Police could not provide crime statistics from last year for comparison, but say that robberies are becoming more common and more violent.

Two weeks ago, four people were killed in a shooting spree in a suburban Bangkok market when a 28-year-old opened fire with an AK-47 rifle. The attacker and a policeman were among those killed.

"Weapons are smuggled easily through Thailand's border with Cambodia, and are available at cheap prices. Police have limited personnel to monitor the smuggling," Aek said.

Traditionally, Thailand's 7,000 gold shops become prime targets for robbers during times of economic trouble, according to the Gold Traders Association.

"As gold prices rise, thieves think that attacking a gold shop is an easy way to get rich," said the association's president Jitti Tangsithpakdi.

"At the same time, police don't have enough staff to look after every gold shop across the nation. Consequently, owners have to look at any way possible to protect themselves from attack," he added.

Some shops have begun installing emergency lights and sirens, or even placing protective metal grills over their counters to separate staff from clients.

Gold trader Wimolthip Jitnoppakhun said she was thinking about installing a grill in her store outside Bangkok after her neighbour's gold shop was robbed.

"I think the expense of only 20,000 baht (579 dollars) for installing the grill is not too expensive, compared to the possible harm to myself or my belongings if there was another attack," said the 32-year-old.