DRUG WAR ESCALATES

BANGKOK, Thailand - Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Monday he would
scour the country for drug traffickers, stepping up a campaign that has
claimed hundreds of lives.

Thaksin, who launched a 90-day antidrug war Feb. 1, shrugged off concerns of
rights groups and a United Nations investigator that the crackdown may have
involved excessive use of force. "The United Nations is not my father," he
said.

Thaksin said Saturday that 1,100 people had been killed in the government's
antidrug campaign.