Junta Militants Arrested in Thailand: BBC (IRRAWADDY)

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=14839

By MIN LWIN Wednesday, December 24, 2008



Thai authorities in the border town of Mae Sot have arrested an armed group of Burmese nationals, including women, who reportedly said that the Burmese military government had sent them to Thailand, according to BBC Burmese radio on Monday.

The BBC Burmese service said that 10 members of an unknown armed group were arrested and weapons were seized from at least four of them.

Sources in Mae Sot said that the Burmese junta has targeted prominent opposition leaders in exile in the past, as well as leaders of armed ethnic groups, pro-democracy organizations and human rights organizations, especially those based in Mae Sot.


Several dissidents along the Thai-Burmese border have claimed that assassinations have been ordered by the junta and suggested that Karen National Union General Secretary Mahn Sha was gunned down on February 14 by junta-backed assassins, although the murder was never officially solved.

Twenty undercover agents from the Burmese military authorities have been assigned and deployed in Thailand’s Mae Sot area to carry out assassinations, said opposition sources on the Thai-Burmese border.