Thailand calls terror alert as jamboree begins
Thailand calls terror alert as jamboree begins
Associated Press, Bangkok
Thailand's National Security Council has ordered a nationwide terrorist alert over the New Year's holiday and will offer special protection to some 20,000 boy and girl scouts from 80 countries gathering for a world jamboree, a spokesman said Friday.
A golf course, located in the middle of Bangkok's international airport, has been declared off-limits to the public as the scouts fly in for the 20th World Jamboree, which begins on Friday at a seaside camp southeast of the Thai capital.
Police Lt. Gen. Pongsaphat Phongcharoen, spokesman for the national police, said more than 200,000 police have been ordered to provide security for both Thais and foreigners at all tourist destinations and other places of where large numbers will gather.
"So far we have no information about a terrorist threat or the possibility of terrorists sneaking into the country. But the National Security Council has ordered maximum precautions at big gatherings of foreigners, especially at the jamboree," said Police Maj. Tritot Ronrithichai of the police department's Special Branch.
He said Special Branch police and military intelligence personnel have been deployed to gather information and provide protection at the jamboree, which ends Jan. 7. He said three countries had made a special request for the protection but declined to name them.
The precautions follow terrorist bombings on the Indonesian resort island of Bali and in the Philippines, which have sent shocks across Southeast Asia.
The Bali bombings, in a nightlife district frequented by Western tourists, killed 192 people and prompted Thai authorities to tighten security at popular tourist spots like the island of Phuket and the beach resort of Pattaya - while issuing almost daily statements assuring foreign visitors that they are safe.
The Bangkok Post said that only government officials, accompanied by at least one member of the air force, would be allowed to play on the airport golf course until the jamboree ends. The course has also been fitted out with surveillance devices and metal detectors.
The golf course is said to contain the only fairways in the world situated between airport runways.
The newspaper quoted Kamrob Leeyavanich, the air force secretary, as saying the precautions were taken in light of the recent missile attack on an Israeli airplane in Kenya.