Officials become main victims in Thai far South

BANGKOK, September 20 (TNA) - The Ministry of Defence reports that suspected insurgents have continued attacking government officials in the Thai far South in retaliation against the government's proactive security operations. At a press conference on solutions to violent unrest in the Thai deep South, Major General Surachart Jitjaeng, Public Relations and Information Chief of the Office of the Defence Minister, confirmed that suspected insurgents have launched more attacks against government officials than general public because authorities have conducted proactive operations and development projects in the southernmost Thai region. According to the Defence Ministry report, there have also been other causes of violent incidents in the far South, in addition to insurgency. Colonel Banpote Poolpian, Spokesman of the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), acknowledged, meanwhile, that the ISOC has arrested 8,065 drug suspects and handled 152 cases of oil smuggling, 83 cases of illegal logging and illicit exploitation of natural resources in the violence-plagued Thai far South during the first three quarters of this year. The spokesman revealed that the ISOC is also tracing 16 terrorist financiers, mostly those from the Middle East, based on the Section 5 of Thailand's Terrorist Financing Act of 2013. Besides, from October 2012 to July 2013, the transaction committee of Thailand's Anti-Money Laundering Office had resolved to confiscate and seize crime-related assets worth 28.4 million baht in the southern border region. (TNA)