Radical Islam Appears to Be Spreading

By BRIAN MURPHY
AP Religion Writer

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- The same day Dutch mourners gathered outside a crematorium for a final goodbye to slain filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, police on the other side of the world made a horrific discovery in a hut: the decapitated body of a Thai laborer.

The two events - in settings as different as tidy and prosperous Holland and a tropical rubber plantation in southern Thailand - bear similarities that suggest new flash points in the global struggle against radical Islam.

A note impaled on Van Gogh's body by the alleged Muslim killer threatened further attacks against Dutch politicians in the name of Islam. The body of the 60-year-old Buddhist worker in Thailand also was found last week with a message: "More will be killed" in revenge for the deaths of 85 Muslim protesters last month in a region with a mounting Islamic insurgency.

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