Thailand steps up security after Uighurs ‘linked to terror’ visit

BANGKOK – Thai police have stepped up security after two ethnic Uighur men from China linked to “foreign terror groups” visited a holiday island, a senior officer said on Saturday.

Fears of a militant attack in Southeast Asia have risen recently, especially after the Islamic State group claimed an attack in the Indonesian capital in January in which eight people, four of them attackers, were killed.

“At the end of March, two Uighurs came to Phuket and stayed one night and then left Thailand,” police Lieutenant General Suchart Teerasawat told Reuters, referring to a tourist island on Thailand’s Indian Ocean coast.

“These two have links to foreign terror groups”, he said.

Suchart said police did not have information about who the Uighurs met or where they went on the island.

“We’re investigating this. After staying one night the pair traveled to Malaysia and Indonesia. We understand they were eventually caught in Indonesia,” he said.

Suchart said authorities were also investigating several ethnic Chechens following reports last week that some were on Phuket.

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