PM orders intelligence improvement in Thai far South

BANGKOK, September 6 (TNA) - Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has ordered security-related agencies to improve intelligence in Thailand's violence-plagued far South. To cope with continual violent attacks in the southernmost Thai region, Yingluck told journalists in Bangkok Thursday morning, after visiting Narathiwat Province to acknowledge local problems and boost morale of people in the troubled region, that she has instructed the National Security Council ( NSC) and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) to improve intelligence in the Thai deep South. Yingluck said she has learned that insufficient equipment and wide areas have been obstacles of local security authorities; so, her government is empowering local people to assist the state security operations and is also training them to protect themselves while local soldiers and police will be backup. Yingluck noted that, in the meantime, the Ministries of Education, Public Health and Social Development and Human Security are working together to improve local people's quality of life. The prime minister confirmed that her government’s new southern command center is supervising and supporting peace-restoration missions in the Thai far South operated by the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) and the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center (SBPAC), and that most local people appear to be satisfied with compensation for unrest incidents. In response to an Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO) recent report that the Taliban movement is likely to have involved in laundering money from arms and narcotic trade in the Thai far South, the prime minister pointed out that it was only an initial report pending the AMLO's official verification. (TNA)