The Hua Hin explosions on Thursday night struck a bar area popular with tourists and foreigners were among those injured.
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A double explosion in the Southeast Asian nation’s resort town of Hua Hin on Thursday night local time killed one woman and injured more than 20 others, including nine foreign tourists Agence France-Presse reports.
Two small bombs exploded in the tourist beach town of Patong on Phuket island and two more in Phang Nga, another tourist region north of Phuket, local police said.
Thai police said on Friday they believe that a series of blasts targeting tourist resorts in southern Thailand overnight and in the morning were acts of local sabotage and were not linked to any worldwide militant group. Nearly all the violence has been in the three southernmost provinces, which Trang does not directly abut.
Edwin Wiek, who has lived in Thailand for nearly 30 years, said one bomb was near the London Bar, not far from the Hua Hin Beach.
The series of blasts come days before the one year anniversary of the Erawan Shrine bombing, which killed 20 people.
An injured man receives help after one of the earlier bombings in Hua Hin.
One person died and three people were wounded in one of the Friday morning blasts near a clock tower in Hua Hin, deputy police spokesman Police Colonel Krisana Pattanacharoen told reporters in Bangkok.
The leadership last weekend held a successful referendum handing the military fresh powers.
“I$3 went to have a look and caught a glimpse of the scene but the whole area was in frenzy and people [were] advised to stay inside”, he said.
On Sunday, Thai voters approved a referendum on a new constitution that is supposed to lead to an election next year.
Six people were reportedly injured after a bomb exploded at a market in Trang, southern Thailand yesterday.
But tourists continue to flock to its white, sandy beaches with the kingdom expecting a record 32 million visitors in 2016 – a bright spot in an otherwise lackluster economy.
The blasts occurred at an intersection with many bars that are frequented by locals and foreign tourists alike, Wiek said.
Police and Thai media reported other blasts the southern cities of Phuket, Trang and Surat Thani.
Henrik Buuz, 62, of Denmark sipped beer in a Hua Hin hotel lobby Friday.
However, the bombs were not particularly big and most beach resorts were on high alert after a bomb was found in Phuket Wednesday night, Paul Quaglia, a Thailand security expert and 20-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, told CNN.
The conflict is largely contained to the mostly Muslim far south although violence has occasionally spilled into other areas.
The head of Interpol in Thailand, Police Major General Apichat Suriboonya, told Reuters he needed more information before deciding “whether it is terrorism or not”. The blasts coincide with an important public holiday which celebrates the queen’s birthday.
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It added that it now had no information that any British nationals were involved in the recent blasts, which t ook place on the birthday of Thailand’s Queen Sirikit and overnight.
