Mossad either getting sloppier or more arrogant in Bangkok bombing by Wayne Madsen

Mossad either getting sloppier or more arrogant in Bangkok bombing
by Wayne Madsen

Thailand's all-points bulletin for a young black-haired man of "Middle Eastern" and/or "European" extraction who is wanted for placing an explosive-laden backpack among mostly Chinese tourists at Bangkok's Lord Brahma Hindu shrine at Erawan in the Chidlom district, in the heart of Bangkok's busy shopping and tourist area, is either a sign that Israel's Mossad is getting sloppier in its false flag attacks or more arrogant in carrying them out.

The bombing killed 27 people, including four Chinese nationals, and wounded more than 120. Among the dead were, in addition to the Chinese, Thais, Malaysians, Singaporeans, and one Filipino, one Indonesian, and one British national. Although no claims of responsibility were made, Israel quickly tried to link the bombing to Iran. This is a major clue as to who was responsible for the attack, along with the fact that the Israeli media was proclaiming that no Israelis were killed or injured in the bombing but that it took place in an area often frequented by Israeli tourists and shoppers. If the area had so many Israeli shoppers normally present why were no Israelis among the dead or injured? The Israeli embassy in Bangkok was quick to report no Israeli casualties in the bombing. One explanation is the Israelis had some form of advance warning to steer clear of Erawan. The fact that no Israelis were harmed in the bombing is even more astounding considering the fact that Thai authorities stated that the intended targets were, in fact, foreigners. Among the injured were Chinese, Taiwanese, Malaysians, Hong Kongers, Japanese, Singaporeans, and a Philippines citizen, an Omani, a Qatari, an Indonesian, and a Maldivian. But no Israelis in one of their "hot spots" in Bangkok.

The Israeli media also lauded the work of the Chabad House in Bangkok for taking care of many Israeli tourists who flocked there for news about the bombing and mutual support. WMR previously reported on our trip to the Chabad House in 2007. It was clear that "non-Middle Eastern looking" people are not welcome there and that it serves the interests, as do all Chabad Houses, of the local Mossad intelligence stations.

The New York Jewish newspaper "The Algemeiner" reported that the Erawan Shrine and adjacent MBK Shopping Complex are known as an "Israeli hot spot" in Bangkok.

Chief suspect in Bangkok bombing (above from security camera) is reported to be "Middle Eastern-looking" and of "European" descent. Some security experts believe the man in the security footage was wearing a wig and glasses as a disguise because he was aware of the number of security cameras in the area. A Mossad team that carried out an assassination of a Hamas official in Dubai in 2010 also wore crude disguises, This is coded law enforcement language for "Israeli." Thai police sketch of perpetrator (below).

Law enforcement agencies around the world, including INTERPOL, are forced to use terms like "Middle Eastern-looking," "Mediterranean-looking," or, as the Thai National Police have recently used in its quest for the Bangkok bomber, "European/Middle Eastern in appearance." To use the term "Israeli" would mean a barrage of howls from Jewish and Israeli organizations that the police agencies are "anti-Semitic." The situation is so bad at the U.S. FBI, any use of the term "Israeli" to suggest terrorism or espionage is seen as a "career killer" for the offending agent.

Plainly, if a suspect were Arab, South Asian, or Muslim, those terms would be used by the police, whether in Thailand, which has a history of fighting a Muslim insurgency in the south of the country, to Britain, which has a sizable Muslim community. Thai police have described the main suspect as a "khaek khao," which means a light-skinned person of South Asian, Persian, or Middle Eastern extraction, not, as is being mis-reported by the Western media, Asian or Middle Eastern "Muslims." Khaek kao could mean a Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Muslim, or Jew hailing from India in the east to the Levant in the west and anyplace in between.

khaek khao

The political correctness involved in investigating the Bangkok bombing has resulted in conflicting information coming from the Thai government. The police said they are looking for a "tall foreign man" with a "prominent nose." The police also said the suspect spoke neither Thai nor English but "another foreign language." Security cameras caught a tall man wearing a yellow T-shirt leave a backpack at the scene of the bombing 15 minutes before the explosion. Police are also looking for two other suspicious people spotted near the man with the backpack. However, a military spokesman said the bombers were not tied to any "international terrorists." Mossad operational teams often consist of 3 to 4 people, with one often a female. Other Thai law enforcement sources said there may be as many as 10 people involved in carrying out the bombing. A later Thai police report suggests that the main suspect may have already fled Thailand, an indication of a sophisticated operation that was not only responsible for the bombing but the exfiltration from Thailand of the team of bombers.

The fact that the bombing is similar to a previous one in Bangkok linked to Mossad suggests both the Thai police and military are correct. The perpetrator is "foreign" and the Mossad is not considered per se an "international terrorist" organization, although it has carried out a number of terrorist acts around the world. The yellow shirt-clad suspect disappeared into a Bangkok neighborhood where a number of Uighur refugees from China live. The escape route was clearly intended to pin the blame for the attack on the Muslim Uighurs, 109 of which were forcibly deported by Thailand to China last month. The Israeli media could not seem to decide on whether the perpetrators were Iranian or Uighurs. Rupert Murdoch's pro-Israeli newspapers tried to pin blame for the attack on Hezbollah.

Thai police said the bomb was a pipe bomb packed with ball bearings that is typically used in terrorist explosions abroad. The bomb's ball bearing shrapnel is designed to kill and maim large numbers of people and not destroy much property. A similar bomb exploded at Sathon pier the next day but it caused no casualties.

WMR reported on the attempt by Israel to pin a 2012 bombing in Bangkok on Iran. Our February 15, 2012 report: "The motto of Mossad has long been based on practicing the art of deception to engage in covert and overt warfare. Mossad's motto "By Way of Deception, Thou Shalt Do War" (Hebrew: be-tahbūlōt ta`aseh lekhā milkhamāh) is being carried out in supposed Iranian-engineered bomb plots against Israeli diplomats in New Delhi, India; Tbilisi, Georgia; and Bangkok, Thailand.

The Israeli ambassador to Thailand, Itzhak Shoham, is alleging that the latest bomb plot in Bangkok, in which two men said to be carrying Iranian passports were caught trying to carry out a bomb plot against Israeli diplomatic targets, were similar to two other operations in Tbilisi and New Delhi. The Tbilisi and New Delhi operations saw amateurish homemade magnetic 'sticky bombs,' similar to those that Israel and the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) have used to carry out car bomb assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists in Iran, being used against Israeli embassy targets.

In Bangkok, 'sticky bombs' made from C-4 explosives went off prematurely in the home of two suspects. The residence is located on Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok. One of the alleged Iranians caught by Thai police is Saeid Moradi. Moradi lost his legs while tossing a grenade at police while they were chasing Moradi.

Earlier, a bomb attached to an Israeli diplomatic vehicle exploded, slightly wounding the wife of an Israeli diplomat. The woman was released from the hospital later the same day. In Tbilisi, a bomb attached to an Israeli diplomatic vehicle was defused before it as detonated . . . Israeli officials have promised retaliation for the alleged Iranian attacks. However, Iran has stated that Israel carried out the attacks in order to damage Tehran's good relations with India, Georgia, and Thailand. Thailand recently recognized the statehood of Palestine.
Thai authorities had been expecting a Mossad operation for the past month in retaliation for Thailand's recognition of Palestine . . . Moradi, the alleged Iranian grenade thrower, flew to Bangkok from Seoul. After arriving in Thailand, Moradi traveled to Phuket and then to Chonburi, remaining for several days during the Cobra Gold exercise. It is believed by Thai sources that Moradi obtained the hand grenades from the U.S. Special Forces team in Chonburi. Moradi threw the grenades at police on Sukhumvit Soi 7 in the Nana area of Bangkok [the area is close to the Nana sois 3,5, 9, and 11, where the suspected Erawan shrine bomber is believed to have escaped after carrying out the bombing of the shrine] .. . Thai sources also point out that Moradi is of Persian Jewish origin. A number of prominent Iranian Jewish families, some of whom are in exile in the United States, have the last name Moradi . . . A number of international terrorism experts claim the Bangkok operation lacked the sophistication that would be expected from Iranian intelligence or Iran's Quds special operations force . . . WMR has learned from Thai sources that the Ekkamai safe house was being used as an assembly center for car explosives. The devices were magnetic packages that were designed to be detonated by radio signal. The bomb packages were being shipped by the MEK from Thailand to Iran disguised as consumer electronics. The Thailand-to-Iran route is how previous car bombs targeting Iranian scientists were being smuggled into Iran.WMR followed up the 2012 bombing story on February 17, 2012: "As the old saying goes, 'when you're trapped in a hole, stop digging.' The more Israel 'reveals' about a four-nation terrorist plot allegedly aimed at Israel by Iran and Hezbollah, the more it becomes an obvious blatant propaganda ploy by Tel Aviv to pin blame on Iran and its allies.

The more Thai police look into the Ekkamai safe house used by the so-called Iranians to plan their bomb attacks against Israeli targets in Bangkok, the more it becomes clear that the house was part of a Mossad operation using Mojahedin-e-Khalk (MEK) terrorists and Iranian Jews as go-betweens.

The Ekkamai safe house was rented by an 'Iranian' woman named Leila Rohani. It is known that Rohani is an Iranian Jewish name specific to musicians in the old Persian royal court. There are a number of Iranian Jewish Rohanis living in the Los Angeles area among members of the de-throned Shah's family.

Singapore has debunked a story that was obviously planted by Mossad in a Kuwaiti newspaper that claimed that Iranian agents, all part of the same ring that allegedly targeted Israeli facilities in Georgia, India, and Thailand, planned to assassinate Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak while he was attending the Singapore Air Show. Singapore police denied they arrested a three-man Iranian-Hezbollah team in the country to kill the Israeli Defense Minister. The information was said to have been passed on by Mossad to Singapore authorities but Singapore and even the Israeli embassy in Singapore deny the story . . .
With information obtained by WMR from Thailand that the magnets used for the bombs in New Delhi and Bangkok came from the same sheet and that the toy-size bomb in New Delhi was constructed at the Ekkamai safe house factory rented by Leila Rohani, the India and Georgia operations appear to have been training missions carried out by Mossad for the benefit of MEK terrorists and their Persian Jewish handlers. A bomb slapped on to an Israeli vehicle at the Israeli embassy in Tbilisi failed to detonate.

Thai authorities are now claiming that a man who lost his legs after a bomb he was carrying detonated prematurely was merely in possession of an Iranian passport, not that he, himself, was identified as Iranian. The man, Saeid Moradi, is now in a Bangkok hospital. Moradi, like Rohani, is a common Iranian Jewish last name.

Moradi and two accomplices were reported to have cavorted with prostitutes at bars in Pattaya Beach, Thailand, before traveling to Bangkok. Actual Quds Force operatives and Iranian special operations covert units have mullahs or junior religious scholars traveling with them, acting as political officers and chaplains . . .
The team of terrorists flew to Pattaya Beach from Phuket. Phuket was near the venue where the U.S. was conducting Cobra Gold military exercises with Thai, South Korean, Japanese, Indonesian and Malaysian forces. One man seen with Moradi and two others in Bangkok, Javad Nikkhahfard, is believed to be the chief bomb maker and is now on the run from authorities. Thai authorities describe Nikkhahfard as of 'Middle Eastern descent' but give no nationality. 'Middle Eastern descent' is a common code used by American and other 'politically Semite-sitive' law enforcement agencies to describe Israelis without endangering their careers.

Another alleged Iranian in Thailand, Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, was arrested in Malaysia while attempting to fly back directly to Iran. Thai sources have stated that this shows that Mossad tried too hard to pin the bombings in Bangkok on Iran. Any competent intelligence agency would have, if we are to believe that the Iranian team in Bangkok was caught red-handed, have immediately found local cover, gained contact with their case officer -- presumably an official cover Iranian diplomat or non-official cover businessman in Bangkok, and then use back-up identification/passport to travel to a third  country, for example, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, or Pakistan, before returning to Iran. The Mossad had obviously pre-paid the air tickets for their 'Iranians' using their actual names for false flag purposes. However, by being stereotypically cheap, the Mossad is rapidly blowing the cover off their shoddy operation."Israelis would be so bold as to try to pin the Erawan shrine bombing on Iran. As seen in their 2012 caper in Bangkok, the Mossad was so sloppy in its operations its fingerprints began to appear all over the Bangkok crime scenes.

Yanukovych victory in Ukraine reverberates in Thailand

The presidential victory of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine and the death of the CIA's and George Soros's "Orange Revolution" in that country has seen a ripple effect in far-away Thailand.

Thailand has dropped criminal charges against four Kazakh nationals and a Belarus citizen arrested on December 12 in Bangkok when their Ilyushin IL-76 cargo transport landed in Bangkok with a cargo from the Korea Mechanical Industry Company in Pyongyang, North Korea. A cache of weapons was discovered on the aircraft. Although the Thai authorities claim that Kazakhstan and Belarus requested their citizens be freed in order that they can conduct their own investigation, the ouster of the neocon government of Ukraine signals that the new government of Yanukovych may be in a position to shine a bright light on an Israeli Mossad and CIA operation designed to get two bangs for the buck -- after the plane, which was flying the North Korean arms to Sri Lanka in support of that nation's U.S.- and Israeli-supported repressive government, was discovered by Thai authorities, the Israelis and Americans decided to concoct a story that the weapons were destined for Mehrabad Airport in Tehran. The CIA had another goal -- it wanted to "test" what types of weapons North Korea was offering for sale on the black market.

On December 15, 2009, WMR reported: "WMR's Asian intelligence sources strongly suspect that an Ilyushin-76 cargo plane seized in Bangkok on December 12 transporting 40 tons of North Korean weapons was a CIA sting operation designed to obtain, using a 'front' airline and regular arms smuggling route, the latest North Korean weaponry available for purchase on the black market.

The IL-76 plane was registered in the Republic of Georgia, a close military ally of the United States and Israel. The IL-76, tail number 4L-AWA, has a history that is emblematic of planes used for smuggling weapons. Earlier this year, the plane was sold by East Wing, a 'private' airline in Kazakhstan, East Wing, which was formerly known as GST Aero and was accused of involvement in arms smuggling -- particularly to Eritrea, Somalia, and India -- and banned by the European Union and Bahrain -- sold the plane in October to Beibarys, another Kazakh airline. The plane was then sold to Air West Georgia and was re-registered in the Republic of Georgia. The flight number of the IL-76 while flying through Bangkok was AWG 732. The plane has also been associated with Asia Wings JSC of Kazakhstan, which also flies to Hanoi.

The firm that chartered the company to fly the weapons from Pyongyang, North Korea is a New Zealand company called SP Trading Ltd. of Auckland. SP Trading also does business in Ukraine. SP Trading is part of a larger firm called GT Group, a firm incorporated in Vanuatu.

GT Group's website states the firm 'is dedicated to providing an extensive range of offshore company services for privacy, legal tax avoidance, asset protection, financial independence and freedom.' In addition to New Zealand and Vanuatu, the company has offices in Samoa (Samoa International Company, Inc.) and the Cook Islands (Cook Islands International Company, Inc.). The Vanuatu subsidiary, Vanuatu International Business Company, registers yachts and boats under the Vanuatu flag.

'GT' appears to stand for Geoffrey Taylor who also is the main shareholder of Vicam of 369 Queen Street in Auckland, the same address that houses the offices of SP Trading and GT Group. Taylor has brokered the sale of Azerbaijani oil to New Zealand via two firms, Sumato Energy Group, Ltd. and Vicam (Auckland), Ltd. Taylor has also been involved with two other firms, Petromobil Ltd. and Sunseeker Energy (Australasia), Ltd., solar power equipment company that has operations in New Zealand, Australia, Norfolk Island, and Lord Howe Island.

Of the IL-76's five-man crew arrested by Thai authorities at Bangkok's Don Mueang Airport, four were carrying Kazakhstan passports: Alexandr Zrybnev, Viktor Abdullayev, Vitaliy Shumkov, and Ilyas Issakov. The fifth, pilot Mikhail Petukhou, was in possession of a passport from Belarus.

When Thai authorities seized the weapons, reportedly after a 'tip' from U.S intelligence sources, the plane was discovered to have a false cargo declaration stating the plane was carrying oil drilling equipment, a rather strange export from North Korea, a non-oil producing or exploration nation. Instead, the plane was found to be transporting rocket-propelled grenades and launchers, missile tubes, surface-to-air missile launchers, military spare parts and other weapons. Thai authorities stated that the U.S. intelligence sources that tipped them off stated that the final destination for the cargo was 'sensitive information.' Thai authorities claimed the military cargo would be 'destroyed' but the crates and boxes were trucked to a secure warehouse at a Thai air force base in Nakhon Sawan province outside of Bangkok.

The IL-76 landed at Hostomel Airport, near Kiev on October 13, reportedly without any cargo, and flew to Baku, Azerbaijan on December, 8 and onward to the United Arab Emirates (reportedly Sharjah), landing in Bangkok on the morning of December 12 for refueling. The plane took off for Pyongyang and after picking up the weapons landed back in on Mueang, Bangkok at 4 pm on December 12. The plane's onward destinations from Bangkok were reportedly Colombo, Sri Lanka and Ukraine. WMR's Asian intelligence sources believe that the CIA knew the plane was planning to pick up weapons in North Korea and may have even chartered the aircraft and arranged a deal to purchase the North Korean weapons through shadowy front companies to both embarrass the North Koreans and discover what was being sold on the global weapons black market.

After the plane was seized in Bangkok, dubious sources reported that the plane was en route to Pakistan, Afghanistan, or an unnamed 'Middle Eastern' country, such as Iran, to deliver its weapons.

The IL-76's most recent owner, Air West Georgia, has close links with the same ownership, to Sun Air, a privately-owned airline headquartered in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, which runs service to Nyala, the largest city in war-torn Darfur.

WMR's Asian intelligence sources report that the ultimate destination for the weapons was the Sri Lankan regime of President Mahinda Rajapakse, who, after his bloody genocide launched with the assistance of Israeli and American military advisers against his nation's Tamil minority, needed to replenish his army's weaponry. Rajapakse defeated former Sri Lankan Army commander, General Sareth Fonseka, in a presidential election widely believed to have been fraudulent. Rajapakse, who planned to steal the election, understood he needed additional weapons to put down anticipated street demonstrations. Rajapakse has arrested Fonseka and the wife of the former army commander has described the conditions of her husband's detention is worse than how an animal in treated.

After the IL-76 was detained in Thailand, the neocon media began to spread the word that the North Korean weapons were destined for Iran. However, that charge was denied by Iran and Thai government spokesman Panitan Wattanayarkorn said reports that the North Korean weapons were heading to Iran were incorrect. It was the neocon-owned and Israel-influenced Wall Street Journal that first floated the Iran connection to the North Korean weapons story. The paper reported that the IL-76 was destined for Tehran with the North Korean weapons. Other media outlets quickly picked up on the Mossad-designed disinformation campaign and happily echoed it.

The botched North Korean operation also highlighted the connections between U.S., Israeli, Ukrainian, Georgian, and Azerbaijani intelligence services. On December 23, 2009, WMR reported: "The cargo plane used to transport the weapons from North Korea was chartered by an intricate web of CIA front and pass-through companies registered in New Zealand, Hong Kong, Vanuatu, Georgia, British Virgin Islands, and Sharjah. The Air West Georgia plane is owned by Overseas Cargo FZE of Sharjah and was leased to SP Trading of Auckland, New Zealand. The IL-76 was previously owned by a Kazakhstan-based company linked to international weapons smuggler Viktor Bout, now imprisoned in Bangkok while the United States appeals a Thai court decision not to extradite him to the United States. Bout has flown charter missions for the Taliban, Al Qaeda, the United Nations, the CIA, and the U.S. Department of Defense. Bout apparently knows enough about U.S. intelligence operations, including 9/11-related information, for him to be a threat to the CIA.

The operation to smuggle weapons from North Korea was a CIA sting operation, conducted with the assistance of Mossad assets in Azerbaijan, where the IL-76 stopped en route to North Korea from Ukraine, and Georgian and Ukrainian intelligence. The North Koreans responded favorably to the request from Sri Lanka for arms because the two countries have been close allies in the Non-Aligned Movement. There is also a possibility, according to our sources, that the IL-76 picked up weapons in Azerbaijan while en route to Sri Lanka, Bangkok, and North Korea.

One of the organizations that served as a 'source for the Wall Street Journal's disinformation about Iran being the final destination for the North Korean weapons, TransArms of Chicago, is, according to our sources in China and Japan, linked to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. The only other time TransArms, a non-governmental organization, has surfaced in the main stream media in the recent past has concerned its reports about the smuggling of weapons to Hamas in Gaza.

Chinese intelligence sources report that the 'sting' operation conducted against North Korea and Iran appears to have been part of a plan by the CIA to resurrect the pro-U.S. "GUAM" alliance of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova. All four countries are now led by governments put into office by elements associated with George Soros and his Open Society Institute/Foundation."

With Yanukovych coming to power in Kiev, the Ukrainian component of the new intelligence partnership has turned into a weak link. The Obama administration understands that it stands to be exposed in the covert operation, including its aiding and abetting of genocide and the bloody crackdown on the opposition in Sri Lanka. The U.S. embassy in Bangkok has remained silent on the Thai announcement of the release of the Kazakhs and Belarussian to their home countries.

The Israelis and Americans attempted to cover their tracks by putting out a false flag story that the IL-76 was chartered by an entity called Union Top Management Ltd., of Hong Kong to fly oil industrial parts from Pyongyang to Tehran with only a refueling stop in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Union Top's owner is a shadowy Spaniard from Barcelona who set up the firm through an entity called R & G Management Consultancy. The Associated Press was the main source of the Iranian link to the IL-76 false flag story. The Thai Foreign Ministry also released a report citing the bogus Iranian link to the North Korean weapons and the validity of the Thai report was actually questioned by Wattanayagorn, the Thai government spokesman.

It is anticipated that Presidents Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakshtan and Belarussian President Aleksandr Lukashenko will ensure the IL-76 crewmen remain silent about their covert operation as a quid pro quo for their release by Thailand. However, the question still remains. Did the United States and Israel pressure Thailand to release the North Korean weapons to Sri Lanka, the actual destination for the armaments cache?

BUSH AND CHENEY, WHO AVOIDED THE VIETNAM WAR, ARE PREPARING FOR A NEW U.S. MILITARY PRESENCE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: AFTER THE MIDDLE EAST DISASTER

March 1, 2007 -- BUSH AND CHENEY, WHO AVOIDED THE VIETNAM WAR, ARE PREPARING FOR A NEW U.S. MILITARY PRESENCE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: AFTER THE MIDDLE EAST DISASTER, GET READY FOR INDOCHINA WAR II.

While in Southeast Asia, this editor looked into rumors that the Bush/Cheney administration has initiated a major military move into Southeast Asia to secure for itself large oil deposits discovered in the waters of the Gulf of Thailand. The U.S. military push into the region is centered on the Cambodian coast, particularly around Sihanoukville.

With three countries -- Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam -- vying for the off-shore oil booty in seas where maritime borders are contested, the Bush/Cheney cartel hopes to achieve a dominant position to exploit the oil reserves for their oil industry friends and backers.

The recent visit of the U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet's USS Gary (FFG 51) to the Ream Naval Base near Sihanoukville on February 9, 2007 was billed as the first visit of a U.S. Navy ship in 30 years. What the Navy and media did not report was that the last U.S. Navy ships to "visit" Cambodia were those in 1975 that pulverized the Cambodian coast in response to the capture of the SS Mayaguez by Khmer Rouge forces.

The visit of the Gary to Ream coincided with the beginning of light building construction by the U.S. Navy at the base to accommodate a greater U.S. naval presence. Photos taken of the Ream Naval Base by WMR show the construction of at least one barracks on the base.

In addition, between 15 and 18 U.S. National Security Agency/Central Security Service signals intelligence (SIGINT) personnel have arrived at Ream to establish an off-shore SIGINT station on one of the Cambodian islands in the Gulf of Thailand. According to a New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) source in Cambodia, the island chosen to host the new U.S. intelligence base is Koh Tang, a location with a prime intelligence-gathering vantage point in the disputed waters of the Gulf of Thailand. Assigned to the nascent NSA contingent are Thai, Khmer, and Vietnamese linguists.

Ironically, the new U.S. naval presence in Cambodia is in the very same area that saw intense fighting between the U.S. Navy and Marines and Khmer Rouge forces that captured the U.S. "container ship", the Mayaguez, in 1975. The 39-man crew of the Mayaguez was briefly imprisoned by the Cambodians on Koh Tang, the suspected site of the new U.S. spy base. Although the Gerald Ford administration contended the Mayaguez was an unarmed merchant ship, it was under contract to the military and may have been spying on oil exploration operations in the Gulf of Thailand near the Wai Islands, claimed by Cambodia. The Cambodians were in the process of releasing the Mayaguez crew when Ford ordered U.S. bombing of the port and airfield of Sihanoukville. Forty-one American military personnel died in the needless attack on Cambodia, most from an accidental explosion. The Mayaguez crew was picked up by the Navy from a Cambodian fishing boat.

With the U.S. support for the September 16, 2006 military coup in Thailand that overthrew that nation's democratically-elected government becoming clear (U.S. ambassador to Thailand Ralph Boyce now sports a yellow tie, a show of support for the royalist-backed coup -- yellow being the color of the monarchy), there is speculation that the U.S. will beef up a presence at Thai bases that were once important during the Vietnam War. This includes the base at Utapao, Thailand, a one-time P3-Orion naval reconnaissance aircraft base and US Air Force base used to attack Cambodia over the Mayaguez incident. Since Thailand was never consulted on the use of Utapao in the attack on Cambodia, Thailand ordered the base vacated by the Americans. The Thais never believed the Mayaguez was an innocent merchant vessel but had somehow provoked the Cambodians to seize it in Cambodian territorial waters.

The Thais continue to be wary of U.S. intentions in Cambodia. The Thai-Cambodian border is in dispute and some Khmers make no secret of their desire to take back historically Khmer territory in eastern Thailand.

"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell