Hua Hin was hit by another two bombs in quick succession on Friday morning near a clock tower, killing one person and wounding four more.
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The attacks came days after the junta saw its new constitution draft approved in a referendum that followed a crackdown on critics of the document.
After the multiple explosions that struck Thai tourist towns on Friday, police detained two suspects for being involved in the blasts.
What’s happening in the country? .
In the recent referendum voters in both Shinawatras’ northeast stronghold and in three mostly Muslim southern provinces voted against the new constitution, while the rest of the country accepted the terms. He said a Samsung cellphone had been recovered that police believe was used to detonate at least one of the bombs.
Phuket in particular is frequented by millions of European, Chinese and Thai tourists each year who come to swim in the warm, azure sea, party at the open air night clubs and explore tropical rainforests. A year later, his sister Yingluck, was installed as the country’s new caretaker leader, but her tenure was plagued by allegations of her brother’s involvement.
A spokesman for the national police, Major General Piyapan Pingmuang, said there was no evidence of a connection to worldwide terrorism.
General Sithichai Srisopacharoenrath, the superintendent of police in Hua Hin, said the bombs were hidden inside pot plants and set off by remote control, half an hour apart.
Are tourists really a target?
Famed for its idyllic islands and Buddhist temples, Thailand is a tourism powerhouse and was hoping for a record 32 million visitors in 2016. However Thailand’s Muslim militant groups have so far been resistant to overtures from global jihadis.
If the insurgents are confirmed as the culprits, the attacks would mark a dramatic escalation of their usual tactics – they have typically limited their assaults to the border region, which is far from Hua Hin and the other areas targeted. The bombs killed one person and injured 21 others, including 10 foreign tourists.
While Phuket is an incredibly popular tourist hotspot, the devices used were not particularly big and most beach resorts were on high alert after a bomb was found in Phuket Wednesday night, according to security expert Paul Quaglia.
All of this seems to point to an attempt on the part of the perpetrators to avoid mass foreign casualties – an appearance of unrest rather than terror.
Thai police said that the bombings were acts of local sabotage and not “terrorist” in nature.
“This is not the nature of the Thai people”. Thai authorities said that bombing was revenge by a people-smuggling gang whose activities were disrupted by a crackdown, but analysts said it might have been the work of Uighur separatists angry that Thailand forcibly repatriated more than 100 Uighurs to China. “My mum texted me just now asking me to stay in touch, but personally, I was not really worried”, he said, showing his mother’s message directly sent from Britain on this phone.
“I think people do return to us, even after last year’s incident”.
“I heard people shouting “bomb, bomb” but I didn’t hear any blast”, said Briton Mark Gainsford.
“At first we had a lot of mixed feelings, because we didn’t know the area well enough”, said Lexus Chlorad, 21, from NY, after arriving in Hua Hin on Friday afternoon.
These were the first such attacks since a bombing last August at a famous shrine in the heart of Bangkok that killed 20 people.
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British vacationer Darren Hilling was lounging by his hotel pool in Hua Hin when a pair of blasts shook the Friday morning calm, “quite loud, sounded very close to here”.
