'Militants planning big attacks in Bangkok'

The attacks would be staged in the five southernmost provinces of Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat, Songkhla and Satun, as well as in Bangkok in order to promote the struggle to carve out an independent Muslim state from the predominantly Buddhist kingdom, he said.

"According to their plan the large-scale attacks, by means of remote control bombs in five provinces and Bangkok, would be prolonged and severe, as they have stockpiled lots of ammunition," said the security source assigned to work on violence in the south.

"The reason why they have to stage attacks in Bangkok is to prevent the central government from sending additional troops to the south," the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The attacks were expected after the new year to mark the first anniversary of a brazen January 4 raid by masked assailants on a military base in Narathiwat, he said.

The raid saw assailants kill four soldiers and steal hundreds of assault rifles, while militants believed to be linked to the same movement torched about 20 state schools in the south on the same night.

The events were widely seen as rekindling a separatist insurgency that has rumbled for decades in the south, parts of which were an independent kingdom before being annexed by Thailand in 1902.

Some 560 people have died in the violence this year, mainly in hit-and-run shootings of security personnel and government officials but also targeting Buddhist monks, teachers and villagers.

Meanwhile, a human rights commission investigating the death of more than 80 Muslim protesters in Thailand has concluded that some officials should be held responsible for the tragedy, the body's chairman said yesterday.

Pichet Soontornpipit would not identify who was to blame for the October deaths, since he was to present preliminary findings by the government-appointed independent commission to Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra later Friday.

The investigation focused on the events of October 25, when security forces broke up a riot in Tak Bai in southern Narathiwat, one of three provinces bearing the brunt of an Islamist insurgency that has left more than 560 people dead this year.