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Thai PM: Bomb suspect confesses
BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) -- Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Saturday that a terror suspect confessed to planning bomb attacks this autumn on Western embassies in Bangkok and soft targets in tourist destinations. Earlier this week, Thai authorities arrested three men suspected of planning terror attacks and another man suspected of trying to sell "dirty bomb" material to undercover police. (Full Story) Shinawatra, speaking in a radio address, said the attacks would have been timed to take place during the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference in October. Thai authorities on Tuesday arrested three members of the Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiya on suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks at embassies and tourist sites in the country, Thai officials told CNN. (Full Story) The three men, including a doctor and a father and son, were arrested in early morning raids of their homes, Thai intelligence officials said. The suspects live in Narathiwat province in the southern part of the country, near the Malaysian border -- a predominantly Muslim area in which authorities believe a Jemaah Islamiya cell operates. A Thai official said authorities suspected the men were planning "to carry out attacks on foreign embassies and tourist attractions" at sites including Pattaya and Phuket. The United States and Australia recently warned against travel to those areas, citing the possibility of terrorist attacks. Officials from several Asian countries and terrorist analysts say Jemaah Islamiya is linked to al Qaeda. "The Jemaah Islamiya network is more or less the al Qaeda cell in Southeast Asia," Southeast Asian analyst Zachary Abuza told CNN. The arrests came just before U.S. President George W. Bush met with Shinawatra at the White House. In a separate case, U.S. officials said Thai authorities arrested a man in Bangkok Friday who allegedly tried to sell undercover police a box containing a radioactive material suitable for making so-called "dirty bombs." The man, Narong Penanam, was charged with illegal possession of a nuclear material, Cesium 137. Cesium 137 is produced when other radioactive materials, such as uranium and plutonium, absorb neutrons and undergo fission, according to a Web site of the Environmental Protection Agency. Officials said there was no information so far linking the man to a terror group. They added that while the man admitted the Cesium 137 was meant to be used to make a "dirty bomb," there was no sign of a plot to use the substance against the United States. A U.S. official said it was "most likely a criminal matter rather than a terrorist one." -- Bangkok Bureau Chief Tom Mintier contributed to this report
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