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Thai official claims al-Qaeda funding Muslim militants

AFP, Bangkok
Thailand's government spokesman Friday for the first time claimed al- Qaeda is funding Islamic separatists in the southern provinces, but the prime minister swiftly said any support is only ideological.
Chaiya Yimvilai told reporters the deadly insurgency in Thailand's mainly-Muslim southernmost provinces has intensified recently as a result of funding from the international tenor network.
"The situation has intensified recently because they received money from overseas, from the international terror organisation al-Qaeda," Chaiya said.
But an hour later, army-installed Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont used his daily press briefing to reassert the government's long-held position that any links to the al-Qaeda network are purely ideological.
The contradicting assessments highlight the government's failure to come to grips with the nature of the insurgency that has claimed more than 2.800 lives since fighting broke out four years ago.
No group has claimed responsi-
biliry for the violence, and the government has yet to publicly identify any of the militancy’s leadership.
Chaiya bluntly told reporters that in addition to funding from al-Qaeda. corrupt Thai soldiers and politicians as well as drug traffickers had a hand in the unrest. "There are also local drug traffickers involved in both financial support and buying arms for militants," he said.
"Violence will continue because there are many factors, including corrupt local officials in uniform, with both local and national politicians involved." he added.
Surayud however reiterated Thailand's position that the conflict along the southern border with Malaysia is an entirely domestic problem with no formal links to global Islamic extremists.
"This organisation (al-Qaeda) has no capacity to provide financial support. Their only exchanges are ideological ones with the various groups operating in the south," Surayud told reporters.
The latest remarks about a possible al-Qaeda role came at the end of a week of grisly attacks in the provinces where the rebellion
began in January 2004.
Separatist rebels killed eight Thai soldiers in Narathiwat on Monday and tried to decapitate them, while at least 37 people were injured Tuesday when a bomb exploded at a morning market in Yala.
Surayud was appointed premier following a bloodless coup in September 2006, when the nation's first Muslim army chief. General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, toppled prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Thaksin s heavy-handed tactics had been blamed for worsening the conflict, and Surayud quickly offered a series of olive branches to the militants in hopes of curbing the unrest.
Instead, killings have grown more frequent and more brutal since the coup, with both Buddhists and Muslims targeted everyday.
An average of 72 people have been killed each month since the military took power, sharply up from 53 deaths every month before the coup, figures from independent monitoring group Intellectual Deep South Watch show.