With many suspected Jemaah Islamiah operatives still at large, terrorism experts have warned that lax border control between Malaysia and Thailand could provide opportunities for militants to operate in the region.

According to a Washington Post report o­n Monday, regional terrorists have been finding easy passage into Thailand, where they re-strategise, via the porous Malaysian-Thai border at Sungai Golok.

"It's a great point of transit. It's also a great place to do business," a Southeast Asian terrorism expert, Zachary Abuza, was quoted as saying.

"Thailand is important to groups like al-Qaeda because it has always been a centre of people-smuggling, gun-smuggling, document-forging, and it has such a large underground economy," added Abuza, who is based at the Simmons College in Boston, United States.

Among the suspected militants that were named in the report as having passed from Malaysia into Thailand were fugitive JI leader, Riduan Isamuddin or Hambali ( photo ), al-Qaeda operative Mohammed Mansour Jabarah and Mas Selamat Kasturi, a Malaysian national who is said to have played a key role in JI's Singapore branch.

Hambali, who is wanted by authorities in Malaysia and Singapore, was last placed in southern Thailand but this has since been denied by Thai authorities.

New militant group?

Elaborating further o­n the alleged presence of JI operatives in southern Thailand, the Post quoted unidentified intelligence officials as saying that the shift in JI's operations from targetting embassies to leisure spots favoured by Westerners was likely to have been planned in Bangkok.

"According to terrorism analysts, (Hambali) convened a meeting of al-Qaeda operatives at which he discussed a tactical shift in operations in the region," said the report.

Another terrorism expert, Singapore-based Dr Rohan Gunaratna, was also quoted as saying that the infiltration of JI leaders into Thailand has led to the emergence of another underground group, known as the Jemaah Salafiya (JS).

The latter group was said to have attended meetings with JI members in Malaysia but few other details were mentioned of this group in the article.

No planning in Thailand

Meanwhile, the Post reported several members of the Thai government denying any knowledge of Jemaah Salafiya or that Hambali had made any planning in the country.

"If you ask whether there is a terrorist operation in Thailand, the answer is no. There is no network, no operation, no cell, no serious planning of anything," Thai foreign minister Surakiat Sathirathai was quoted as saying.

However, the newspaper also reported that Thai officials had conceded that the country's intelligence operations are still far from efficient.

"We cannot compare to the CIA. We cannot compare to Singapore or Malaysia," said the official, who attributed the problem to a lack of resources for intelligence-gathering work.