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Security has been boosted at potential terrorist targets throughout Thailand following Sunday's triple blasts which rocked the southern business town of Hat Yai, local press reported Tuesday.
Six major international airports in Thailand has heightened the security level with safety measures such as the use of bomb-sniffing dogs and elimination of abandoned luggage being put in place.
In Bangkok, security checks had been enhanced at 256 spots with another 180 points placed under close surveillance, Metropolitan Police Bureau commissioner Pol Lt-Gen Pansiri Prapawat was quoted Tuesday by Bangkok Post newspaper as saying.
Close-circuit cameras will be installed in at least 40 locations throughout the capital, while Hat Yai International airport will get 25 new cameras.
The explosions which went off at a department store, the airport and a hotel in Hat Yai of southern Songkhla on Sunday led to the deaths of two people and injuries of 69 others, including four foreigners.
Fears mounted that the insurgents would splash their campaign of violence out of the South, as Hat Yai was not part of the Muslim-majority region, where some 800 people were killed over the past 15 months.
On Monday afternoon, another bomb exploded at a technical college in Yala, one of the three southernmost border provinces in the kingdom, during a football competition, seriously injuring four soldiers who were passing on a patrol truck.
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, while condemning the Hat Yai attacks, noted that the violence would certainly affect tourism and the economy, so confidence would have to be restored as soon as possible.
Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has advised its citizens to defer travel to Thailand' southern provinces after the bombings.
Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon said it was understandable for foreign governments to warn their citizens of visiting Thailand for security reasons. He also said Thailand would provide "close cooperation with foreigners."
(Xinhua News Agency April 5, 2005)
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