Security concerns threaten to disrupt Laos' turn in the international spotlight when Southeast Asian leaders gather in Vientiane for their annual summit later this month, experts say. The landlocked communist nation is hosting the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit for the first time. Top leaders from China, Japan, India and South Korea are also due to attend.
However, over the past few weeks, concern has been growing about the possibility that disaffected groups or individuals could carry out attacks around the summit to embarrass the communist regime.
"They are extremely nervous, they are not ready," said a Vientiane-based foreign observer. On Monday two small bombs exploded at the Friendship Bridge linking Laos to Thailand, according to foreign sources. No one was hurt or killed but the attack was the latest in a series of blasts that have rocked the country over the past couple of years.
The government, however, denied there was any blast.
"If you consider all the noises you hear in Vientiane at the moment as bombs, then it will happen every day. The whole country is having parties at this time of the year," foreign ministry spokesman Yong Chanthalangsy said.
In October the US State Department said opponents of the Lao government may be plotting multiple bomb attacks in Vientiane and other areas of Laos to coincide with the November 25-30 ASEAN gathering.
Angered by the warning, the government guaranteed the safety of all delegates. Laos sources say as many as 6,000 police officers have been drafted from other parts of the country to maintain security in the capital.
A Vietnamese diplomat also said that Hanoi has sent a "large number" of its own police officers, as well as teams of military intelligence officials and security equipment. A number of advisors have already been deployed, according to the same source.
Westerners living in Vientiane are on their guard.
"Several groups might want to use the summit to express their opinions," said the foreign observer. "But it would only make sense if the actions are claimed by someone."
No one really knows the identity of the elements who appear intent on destabilising the government but who have failed to loosen its grip on power.
The capital was rocked by 14 bombings between 2000 and 2001 in which four people were killed and more than 40 injured.
No one claimed responsibility until October 2003, when an organisation calling itself the Free Democratic People's Government of Laos said it was behind them.
Two bomb blasts in February in Vientiane and in the southern city of Savannakhet were claimed by another group, calling itself the Committee for Independence and Democracy in Lao. Diplomats attributed last year's series of attacks on buses and other vehicles that left at least 26 people dead to small bands of ethnic minority rebels who fought for the United States during the Vietnam War.
Most experts agree they have nothing to do with the attacks in the capital.
In July last year, the Fact Finding Commission (FCC), a US-based advocacy group, claimed that resistance fighters, local militia and army defectors had banded together under the umbrella of the Lao Citizens Movement for Democracy and launched an uprising to topple the government.
Many diplomats dismissed the FCC's claims as exaggerated and subsequently little has been heard about the resistance movement. Although these or other groups could try to disturb the Asian meeting and could embarrass the government few people in Vientiane are scared.
"In the past, very few people were injured by the bombs. Those responsible were just interested in making a point rather than hurting anybody," said another observer.