One insurgent captured in Wednesday's attacks against Thai government admitted that the latest violence was aimed to set up a separate Muslim state in theregion, the state-run Thai News Agency (TNA) reported on Friday.

"One of the leaders behind the devastating raids on security outposts in the southern province of Yala has confessed to wanting to see the partition of the southern region into a separate Muslimstate, shattering government assertions that the escalating violence in the southern border region is the work of drug-fuelledyouths rather than committed separatists," said the TNA report.

The 43-year-old Mana Matiyo, head of a small band of insurgents,told the police that his group were separatists who would sacrifice everything for Allah.

Members of his group were divided strictly by ranks and leaders wore shirts emblazoned with the Arabic slogans "In the footsteps of Allah" and "There is no God but Allah".

He also denied the government accusation that most of Wednesday's attackers were drug addicts hired by a third party.

More than 100 unidentified armed men on early Wednesday launched simultaneously attack against 11 government places in the three southern provinces of Yala, Songkhla and Pattani, all lying some 1,000 kilometers south of Bangkok and close to Malaysia to the south.

The clashes between insurgents and government troops lasted about eight hours and left a record-high toll of 113 dead, 108 of which were attackers.

After the incident, the Thai government quickly declared that the violence was work of corrupt politicians, local Mafia and different interest groups, having no relation to religious conflicts and international terrorism.

The Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra also said the attackers, most local teenagers, were hired by a third party for the offense and most of them behaved under the influence of drugs.

Police now believed Mana was one member of the local "Islamic separatists group Barisan Rvolusi National," while he himself saida religious leader named Ussatatya in Pattani was responsible for his group's knowledge and teaching, according to TNA.

Though the government strongly denied any links between Wednesday's violence and religious conflict, local media has running stories indicating the opposite opinion.

Newspaper The Nation on Friday quoted unnamed intelligence resources as saying that a number of religious leaders played a key role in the worst violence on Wednesday.

The report also said the religious leaders behind the violence included Islamic provincial committee members with links to local politicians.

Thailand's deep south is home to most of the kingdom's small pocket of Muslim population. Separatist movement petered out thereuntil late 1980's there, but since then the region has been long disturbed by sporadic violence created by a handful remaining separatists grouped with gangsters engaged in illegal business.

Concerns of separatists movement has flared up again in the region since January 4, when armed men simultaneously torched down20 schools, looted more than 300 weapons and killed four soldiers.

The latest violence on Wednesday has cast more concerns over the region's security situation.

Source: Xinhua