Thai PM denies overseas backing for insurgency in south

muslim radicals in Thailand spark violence.

• Thailand's premier denied foreign extremists were involved in an insurgency in the kingdom's Muslim-majority south amid concerns the violence could spread.

  Thaksin Shinawatra blamed Thai Muslims who had studied abroad for stoking a separatist-inspired campaign that has left more than 540 people dead after it sparked back into life in January.

  "There has not been any support from foreign governments but it's our nationals who have studied aboard and established personal ties with hardliners," he told reporters in this northeastern province where he was chairing a cabinet meeting.

  "There was no interference from any international organisations. There wasn't any link with Al-Qaeda," he said.

• Thai Muslims who have studied Islam abroad, not foreign militant groups, are behind the spate of bloody violence in the far south, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said on Tuesday.
• There have been increasing reports of violence in southern Thailand, including serial bomb blasts and shootings on 12 and 13 November in which one person died and more than 25 people, including a seven-month-old child, were injured. In the latest violence, suspected Islamic militants on 14 November gunned down a former police officer and a migrant worker from neighboring Myanmar.