Speaking to The Nation from an undisclosed location in Sweden, Pattani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo)’s foreign affairs chief Kasturi Mahkuta, maintained that it was not entirely out of the question that any of the “Malay liberation groups” could be thinking about hitting targets outside the region as said a senior member of the Pulo on 10 August, 2007, that uprising violence in the deep South could spread out of the Malay-speaking region to Phuket and Bangkok unless the government changed its course.
Ultimately, the course of action taken would depend entirely on the actions of the government, and Pulo has a significant number of officials and armed troops in southern Thailand but declined to go into detail or take credit for any of the attacks in the region. Kasturi said.
The Pulo leadership is concerned with the violence in the region and the high number of casualties and suggested that the violence appeared to be getting out of hand. There is also the tendency to unfairly blame all the attacks on the “Malay liberation groups”, including Pulo, he added.
He also stated that Pulo is willing to enter into dialogue with the government to discuss “solutions other than a total breakaway”. Southern insurgency
