Thailand's army chief has brushed aside a list by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that ranks the country as Asia's most likely target for terrorist attacks.
Thai army chief Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha said he contacted the US military attache at the US embassy in Bangkok who apologised for the "misunderstanding" caused by the list, the Bangkok Post reported.
Department of Special Investigation (DSI) chief Tarit Pengdith disclosed the FBI's list yesterday.
The FBI had warned Thailand that it ranked at the top of the region as a possible terrorist target, Tarit said.
In researches conducted in the US and Britain, Thailand ranked fifth in the world as a possible target for terror attacks, Tarit said.
Rejecting the FBI's ranking, Gen Prayuth said,"It's not true to say that Thailand is at risk of being hit by a terrorist attack."
"The information must be corrected straight away. The research is based largely on the number of violent incidents and casualties in the three southern Muslim majority border provinces," he was quoted by the Bangkok Post as saying.
He said the FBI had also asked Thai authorities to help arrest Jason Derek Brown, an American fugitive wanted by the FBI for allegedly murdering a security guard in an armed robbery of a cash-transport vehicle in Arizona in 2004.
Brown is on the FBI's top ten most wanted list.
