SINGAPORE, Jan 5: A Singapore-based security expert has warned that Bangkok could face a terrorist attack within a year as tension rises between Muslim and Buddhist communities in Thailand’s south.

Rohan Gunaratna, a security analyst at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS) in Singapore, also told a conference on Thursday that Iraq had become the new ‘epicentre of jihad’, inspiring a new generation of ‘terrorists’ around the world.

Asian leaders have put terrorism high on their list of security concerns following bomb attacks in Bali, Madrid and London, as well as outbreaks of violence in the south of Thailand, where 80 per cent of the population is Muslim.

“We believe that the threat of terrorism is growing at a very serious pace, and that it is just a question of time before they attack Bangkok,” Mr Gunaratna, who heads a terrorism research unit at IDSS, told reporters on the sidelines of the conference.

He said Thailand’s government needs to expand its intelligence network, engage Thailand’s Muslim political leadership and work with neighbouring Malaysia to stop the spread of ‘cross-border terrorism’.

“If they don’t do that, our assessment is that terrorists will attack Bangkok before the end of the year,” he said.

An attack on the Thai capital, which has a population of about 10 million, would have major economic implications for the country, said Sidney Jones, Southeast Asia Project Director for the International Crisis Group, who also spoke at the conference.

Deputy Prime Minister Chidchai Vanasatidya, who is responsible for day-to-day security in the south, said this week that most of those responsible for the unrest had been caught and that the government had ‘fixed 40 per cent of the problem’.

Mr Gunaratna said that terrorist networks have expanded to 10 European countries, as well as the Middle East, and were inspiring cell networks across Southeast Asia. Indonesia’s home-grown Jemaah Islamiah, the group seen as Al Qaeda’s regional arm, has been blamed for the 2002 bombings in Bali, which killed 202 people. —Reuters