BANGKOK, July 15 (UPI) -- Weapons allegedly ordered by Islamic rebels in Indonesia and smuggled from Cambodia have been intercepted in southern Thailand and three smugglers were arrested, Thai officials said Monday.
Police said the weapons, including 68 AK-47 assault rifles, five machine guns and five anti-tank rockets, were seized Sunday night by police and military forces from a fishing trawler docked in a canal in Rangoo district of Satun province.
It was the second cache of arms captured this month that authorities say was bound for Muslim rebels in the far-western Indonesian province of Aceh. On July 3 a shipment that included AK-47 ammunition and Chinese-made rockets was seized from a boat off the coast of the island of Phuket.
Police said the three suspects arrested during the raid on Sunday night were charged with smuggling war weapons. They said one of the suspects had admitted the weapons were smuggled from Cambodia and had been ordered by Indonesian rebels in Aceh.
Speaking to reporters in Bangkok after the latest weapons seizure, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Monday he had ordered police and military personnel to intensify their anti-smuggling operations.
"I've ordered the army to make a list of all the war weapons in the country. We must keep an accurate record system to keep track of all these weapons," he said.
Weapons left over from nearly two decades of war in Cambodia are available on the Thai black market. Buyers in the past have included Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka and Thai domestic insurgents as well as Indonesian rebels.
Southern Thailand is embroiled in violence that has been blamed on Islamic rebels hoping to form an Islamic republic from the kingdom's five southern Muslim-majority provinces. Aceh Merdeka rebels have also stated their aim of creating an Islamic republic at the western tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
