Army Commander in Chief Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha urged the people to watch out for suspicious activities by foreigners to minimise acts of terrorism.
Prayuth said there are only some 80,000 police officers in Bangkok and that they already have a heavy workload preventing and dealing with normal crime, so it was thus impossible for the public to depend solely on the police to prevent terrorism.
"Bangkok has 10 million people and 10 million pairs of eyes so they need to help monitor the situation and prevent untoward incidents," Prayuth said.
Prayuth said there was greater potential Thailand to be hit by terror attacks as the world is now borderless. The Army chief said when Thailand is fully integrated into the Asean Economic Cooperation, travelling between Asean nations would be easier and the chances of untoward incidents happen would be greater.
Prayuth was commenting on the arrest of two Iranians in Thailand following three explosions in Bangkok last week. The two Iranians along with other suspects, who have fled the country, were reportedly planning to assassinate Israeli embassy officials with DIY bombs.
Prayuth also urged business operators, especially hotels, to keep records of their customers and alert the authorities immediately if they noticed suspicious actions of their foreign customers.
The Army chief said police and military intelligence agencies also needed to cooperate more on intelligence information.
He denied that the Thai authorities had underestimated the situation of international terrorism in the country.
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