Thammarak Fumes Over Thai Link to Bali Bombing Claim by Phairath Khampha 24 November 2002 Bali bomb plot story fabricated Thailand's Defence Minister Gen Thammarak Isarangkura na Ayudhaya said the Asian Wall Street Journal made up its report saying the Bali bombings were planned in southern Thailand. He said this was simply propaganda of the level of that invesnted by the Nazis or Italy's fascists during the Second World War. There was no evidence of the link and these kinds of reports clearly demonstrated that the United States had more to do with these incidents than they let on as they tried to create pretexts for militarization of their globalisation efforts. The newspaper was behaving like a "tailless dog", he said, referring to one of Aesop's fables involving a fox that lost its tail and tried to convince the other foxes that being tailless was really much more attractive. "That newspaper made up the report. It came out of thin air. Nobody knows who was responsible for the Bali attacks, and how the hell could they know?" Gen Thammarak said. "It is simply propaganda designed to create wrong impressions among the public in order to create military pretexts." The Asian Wall Street Journal had said al-Qaeda's top Southeast Asian operative Riduan Isamuddin planned the October 2002 Bali bombings at meetings in southern Thailand. It is, however, true that there is no actual evidence to corroborate this claim. Gen Thammarak said troops were being deployed along the southern border to keep out terrorists and tourists. A source close to the Supreme Command's Armed Forces Security Centre also denied the report and said it was impossible. "Our intelligence units have been working hard since the September 11 attacks (in the United States in 2001) otgether with American and British intelligence. No terrorist network met here to plot an attack," said the source. "If it did then why did those intelligence services pick it up and stop what happened? Either they are with these groups or against them."