Thai police have suggested that an Islamist group in Indonesia may be behind last week’s deadly bomb in Bangkok that killed 20 people, as the authorities admitted that the perpetrator may have left the country.
Indonesia’s security minister said that the East Indonesia Mujahidin (MIT), a militant Islamic group that killed a policeman on the island of Sulawesi last week, is being investigated for links to the Bangkok bomb.
The group, believed to consist of about 40 members living in a dense and isolated jungle in the Poso district, is led by Indonesia’s most wanted terrorist, who goes by the single name of Santoso. Indonesian police believe that it communicates with Isis.
“[We are investigating] whether it has links with other places, and also what it has to do with Bangkok,” said Luhut Panjaitan, the Indonesian security minister.
Thousands of people died in conflicts between Christians and Muslims in Poso in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the district has become Indonesia’s last redoubt of armed Islamic militancy. Last year, seven Uighurs from western China were found to be undergoing training from MIT in Poso.
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One theory about the Bangkok bombing is that it was the work of vengeful Uighurs, a Turkic people who are fighting for independence for China’s western state of Xinjiang.
Thailand caused outrage last month when it returned to China some 109 Uighurs who had been seeking asylum.
Members of Thailand’s junta have said they do not believe that the bomb was the work of international terrorists — but they have no clear idea of who was behind it.
The national police chief admitted yesterday that the bomber may no longer be in Thailand. “I suspect that he may have left, but we will keep searching, in case we can find others who may be in the country or find clues, evidence and witnesses who may have seen him,” Somyot Poompanmoung said.