“As the national police chief (Gen Chakthip Chaijinda) said on the first day, this might be related to politics”.
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Two people have been detained for questioning in Hua Hin – rocked by four bombs – and one arrest warrant has been issued over a suspected arson attack in Nakhon Si Thammarat province, the spokesman said.
The bombings took place just days after a Thailand approved its new military junta-backed constitution.
“The events are connected, carefully planned and carried out across many areas and masterminded by one individual”, he said, without elaborating on who the individual was or the motive behind the attacks.
Its deputy minister Datuk Jailani Johari said the commission is ready to provide its assistance if it is asked to cooperate with the Thai government.
There has been no claim of responsibility, but there are plenty of groups unhappy with the political situation in the Southeast Asian nation.
The only regions to reject it were the Shinawatra strongholds in the north and northeast, plus the three insurgent-torn provinces in the deep south.
Even after the blast at Erawan Shrine in central Bangkok in August previous year that killed 20 people and injured almost 80, majority foreign visitors, the government still would not use the word “terrorism” – for fear it would hurt tourism arrivals.
The resort was the scene of the most devastating of the wave of bombs when a blast ripped through an alley in a bar area on Thursday evening.
Two blasts near the police station in Surat Thani, a mainland river estuary town where ferries bound for Samui island dock.
A police bomb disposal unit was called to Paradise Plaza market in Phuket to inspect a suspicious rucksack which contains a mobile phone wired to an electronic circuit board with burn marks on it.
According to the local Channel 3 broadcaster, no casualties have been reported following the incidents.
At least five explosive devices were found near Patong Beach on Phuket island, where there are many bars and massage parlours that southern insurgents see as being “sinful”.
Several new attacks took place Sunday and Monday in two of the deep south provinces where bombings and drive-by shootings have become nearly a daily occurrence over the past decade.
At least two men have been held for questioning over the blasts in Hua Hin – struck by four of the bombs – and a third was arrested over a suspected arson attack in a separate province, police said. Police said the numerous blasts was evidence of a network and that the perpetrators were believed to still be in Thailand. Article 44 and other laws allow the temporary detention of suspects without due process or accountability.
Speaking at a Saturday event to promote Thai products and handicrafts, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha assured reporters that he was dealing with the situation.
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Although their targets have overwhelmingly been confined to Thailand’s three southernmost provinces, the militants have apparently carried out isolated attacks elsewhere detonating, for example, a vehicle bomb in the underground parking lot of a mall on the tourist island of Koh Samui in April 2015 that wounded at least seven people.
