Thai links to IS denied, despite heavy Facebook, online activity
THERE IS no evidence of any Thais backing the so-called Islamic State (IS), despite reports of multiple visits to the terror group’s Facebook pages by Thai nationals, deputy national police spokesman Piyapan Pingmuang said yesterday.
Piyapan said the Thai internet users were simply following the Facebook pages and there was no link to any wrongdoing. He also affirmed that Thailand had measures to prevent terror attacks.
Deputy police chief Pol-General Srivara Ransibrahamakul revealed on Tuesday that the Australian Federal Police’s terrorism assessment unit reported to the Bangkok Regional Cooperation Team’s annual meeting that an unidentified number of Thai nationals had visited IS Facebook pages, using nearly 100,000 usernames, over the past year.
Piyapan clarified that police checks on such usernames were a normal follow-up action to determine their intentions or links. He said the initial investigation found no ties to IS and some usernames were old and already cancelled.
The spokesman said there was no IS movement detected in Thailand, so the public should not be alarmed.
Echoing the call for calm, Srivara yesterday said his earlier comment was intended to inform the public that Thai police were checking the Thailand-based usernames cited by their Australian counterparts.
“Australia has more modern tools than ours, so when they find something suspicious, they just pass the information on for us to help check and confirm,” he said, adding that the National Intelligence Agency did not find any IS movement or links in Thailand.
Srivara said there was no confirmation that any Thai national provided financial support to IS, nor was there any established IS link to unrest in the deep South.
He said the Immigration Police, as a matter of routine, checked on people travelling to and from Syria as well as Thai students flying to the Middle East, but that didn’t mean they were suspects.
