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BANGKOK, Dec 8 (Bernama) -- A suspected leading member of the southern Thai separatist movement, the Pattani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo) was arrested in Malaysia and sent back to Thailand, local newspapers said Thursday. The Nation and Bangkok Post dailies, quoting sources, said Manase Jeloh,35, who has a three million baht reward on him, was captured by the Malaysian special branch and handed over to their counterpart two days ago. The papers said he was handed over to the deputy national police chief, General Priewphan Damapong at the Sadao Immigration checkpoint and being interrogated at a secret location. Neither senior...

ANGKOK: Thailand on Wednesday condemned a statement by a group of Thai Muslim calling for self-government in the restive south where more than 1,000 people have been killed in the past 22 months. The Patani United Liberation Organization (PULO) said on Tuesday the conflict could degenerate into a war between religions in mainly Buddhist Thailand unless Bangkok grants the region the right to self-government. The government said the group only wanted to incite religious conflict among people in the three mainly Muslim provinces along the Malaysia border. "The statement by PULO runs counter to the efforts to promote peace and...

BANGKOK, Aug 28 (Reuters) - A bloody insurgency in Muslim southern Thailand is a struggle for the independence of its ethnic Malay majority involving tens of thousands of people ready to die for their cause, a senior separatist figure said. In his first interview with a major news organisation since violence flared 20 months ago, a spokesman for the Pattani United Liberation Organisation (PULO) said his movement had no ties to international groups such as Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda or its southeast Asian affiliate, Jemaah Islamiah. "We have no connection with those terrorists," the senior member of PULO,...

Thai Muslim guerrilla at peace as fears of unrest mount -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Dominic Whiting BA JOH, Thailand, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Yousuf "Pakistan" Longpi led a band of 11 men in darkness down the jungle-clad mountain, wielding Vietnam war relics -- an M-79 grenade launcher, two carbines and an M-60 machinegun. Their mission: to destroy a police station and grab as many weapons as possible for a struggle to create an independent Islamic state in Thailand's southernmost provinces. "We launched the first bomb and the attack started," the 54-year-old former guerrilla said. "But the second bomb didn't explode, so we...

THAILAND, BANGKOK -- Police suspect an Islamic group was involved in the bombing of a train in southern Thailand, the national police chief said Tuesday -- suggesting for the first time a link between Muslim activists and a rash of violence in the area. The small bomb, left in a box on the train, exploded Monday when the train was at Yala station. Two security guards who were inspecting the suspicious package were wounded when it blew up. Muslims are a majority in the south of Thailand, but make up just 4 percent of the country's 62 million people, who...