Heavily armed raiders stole a large quantity of explosives from a quarry in Thailand's largely Muslim south, just days after a bomb attack in the region and prompting fears of another, officials said yesterday.
"With this amount of fertilizer, you could blow up a whole town," Pallop Pinmanee, deputy chief of the Internal Security Operations Command, said at the scene of the robbery, which included 1.4 tonnes of ammonium nitrate.
Meanwhile, the suspects in Saturday's bombing in southern Thailand are probably still in the country and haven't escaped to Malaysia because "the army has sealed the border so tight it would be difficult to get out," Defense Minister Chettha Thanajaro said yesterday.
Chettha contradicted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who said on Tuesday that the police know who is responsible for the blast and that the suspects had fled to Malaysia.
"The suspects have already crossed into Malaysia.
"We know who they are and we are asking for cooperation from Malaysia," local media reported Thaksin as saying.
The government ordered a full alert, not only in three provinces near the Malaysian border under martial law since January, but also two more along the frontier ahead of next month's Thai New Year celebrations which draw many Malaysians.
"These people are apparently seeking to destabilize the situation and hurt the tourism industry," Interior Minister Bhokin Bhalakula said.
"We have ordered a full alert for government installations, public places and tourist resorts in many areas," he said after 10 masked men armed with AK-47 and M-16 assault rifles raided the quarry in Libon, 70km from the Malaysian border.
They made off with 1.4 tonnes of ammonium nitrate used in making explosives for blasting, 58 sticks of dynamite and 180 detonators, police said.
The Manu Rock Grinding Co quarry was closed when the raid took place on Tuesday evening with only two security guards on duty and the raiders went straight to the separate, poorly locked sheds where each item was kept.
That suggested they knew exactly what they were looking for and where to find it, they added.
Bhokin said the alert covered the southern commercial hub of Hat Yai and the west coast town of Satun which draw thousands of tourists during the Songkran New Year celebrations from April 13 to April 15.
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