Seventy-two bomb attacks in the past two days in southern Thailand, according to AKI: Indonesian militant arrested over bomb attacks. (Hat tip: Fjordman.)

Seventy-two coordinated attacks by Islamic terrorists, and not a single word in Western media.

Bangkok, 16 June (AKI) - Police in the southern Thai city of Narathiwat have arrested an Indonesian man who was found in possession of explosives, sparking fears that Muslim fundamentalists are planning new attacks in the south of the country.

A series of 72 bomb attacks by suspected Muslim militants were reported in the past two days in the southern provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani. Sumatra-born Sabri bin Emaeruding, 37, was arrested in a hut in Narathiwat in which police found material to prepare home-made explosives.

His arrest, along with the statements of Interior Minister Kongsak Wanthana - who has said that “the bombs used recently were probably assembled abroad” - is sparking fears that foreign militants have recently started operating in Thailand.

Analysts including Zachary Abuza, one of the top experts on terrorism in Southeast Asia, have long made such allegations, claiming that Jemaah Islamiyah, an Indonesia-based terror group with a long track record of bomb attacks in the region, and the Pattani Islamic Mujahideen, a local Islamic group, forged ties as far back as March 2005.

In November last year general Sonthi Boonyaratglin, who heads the Thai army, had spoken about the possibility of a fundamentalist Thai-Indonesian axis after 17 local terrorists had confessed they were part of a group of 300 militants trained in Indonesia.

Secret service sources had also warned at the time that an Indonesian known as Mudeh was the head of the south Warriors of Valaya, a newly formed radical group active in Thailand and with connections in Malaysia, Singapore, Afghanistan and Indonesia.

Nevertheless Bangkok continues to claim that the instability in the country is a domestic problem and that cracking down on militants while helping the economy is the best solution to the problem.

Meanwhile the security situation continues to deteriorate as the unprecedented co-ordinated attacks in the three provinces show.

Six people were wounded in seven explosions in Yala on Friday, police said. The bomb attacks follow another 65 reported on Thursday - 13 in Yala and 26 both in Pattani and in Narathiwat - that killed three people and injured 20.

The explosions were considered a display of strength and a clear sign of rejection by rebels of a peace plan presented last week by the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC).