Rebels 'planning attacks' at Thai resorts

Terrorists are plotting attacks next year at tourist resorts across Thailand, according to documents found in the house of a fugitive leader of the country’s Islamic insurgency, a senior security official said.

The rebels also planned to turn three Muslim-dominated provinces in Thailand’s south into a base for international terrorist groups, he said.

The plans indicate the insurgents want to broaden a conflict in the south that has killed more than 570 people this year, and fuels concerns their cause is gaining support among Islamic extremists outside the country.

General Kitti Rattanachaya, a senior security adviser to Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, said the seized documents indicated the separatists wanted to escalate their fight against the Buddhist central government next year.

“The situation will be terrifying as the terrorists open war on all fronts to divert attention from the southern area,” said Kitti, a former army commander in the south.

The documents were seized earlier this year from the house of Masae Useng, a former Islamic schoolteacher whom the government accuses of masterminding a separatist plan for Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat provinces, which border Malaysia.

Officials have said previously that the separatists had threatened to attack tourist sites, but had not said where the information came from.