Cambodia says locals behind bombing attempt

Phnom Penh (Agencies): Cambodia said on Tuesday locals, not foreigners or Islamic militants, were behind an attempted bombing near a hotel in the tourist town of Siem Reap, where a meeting of Southeast Asian ministers was taking place.

A bomb disposal unit removed three TNT charges weighing one kg each from near the locally owned Angkor Century Hotel on Sunday. Prime Minister Hun Sen was due to deliver a speech at a conference in the hotel on Monday.

Police said they arrested three suspects on Sunday and a fourth on Monday in connection with the bombs in the town, which is close to the popular 9th-12th century Angkor temples, the country's main tourist attraction.

The suspects were planning to set bombs off in the tourist town, where ASEAN - the Association of Southeast Asian Nations - is holding a ministerial-level meeting on rural development and poverty eradication, police Col. Nuori Bophal said.

"I believe the act was intended to create a disturbance for the (ASEAN ministers') meeting on rural development and for tourists visiting the Angkor temples in Siem Reap," said national police chief Gen. Hok Lundy.

Hok Lundy told Reuters all those arrested were local farmers and there was no sign Muslim militants or foreigners were involved in the attack. All those involved in the plot were former Cambodian soldiers who deserted from the army many years ago, he said.

"So far we have not seen any sign of the involvement of Muslim extremists." Hok Lundy told Reuters. "We have arrested one more (on Monday) and we are hunting for two other locals."

Siem Reap Deputy Police Chief Lach Savin told Reuters the suspects had told police they were hired to plant the bombs and were promised 10,000 Thai baht ($235) and one motorcycle each after the bombs went off.

Officials declined to speculate on the motive for the attempted attack and said an investigation was continuing.

'We know that this is an act of terrorism, but we do not know yet what was the motive as the investigation is not yet over," interior ministry spokesman. General Khieu Sopheak. told Reuters.

Cambodia released a defense white paper last month saying the government feared militant infiltration by international extremist groups in the wake of the bombings targeting tourists in Indonesia and Kenya.

Cambodia has recently seen several years of relative peace and stability after decades of war and bloody revolution.

The last fighters of the Khmer Rouge the radical communist group under whose 1975-79 rule 1.7 million people were killed- surrendered in 1998.

But a small group of rebels with links to right-wing Cambodians based in the United States has vowed in recent years to oppose Hun Sen government and launched small attacks in Phnom Penh.

Predominantly Buddhist Cambodia has a small Muslim community that is seen as well integrated and not political.