The arrest warrant was issued in relation to an arson attack on a supermarket in Nakhon Si Thammarat early on Thursday, Pongsapat said.
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No one has claimed responsibility for at least 11 small explosives and series of suspected arson attacks that ripped across core tourist hubs Thursday night and Friday morning, killing four locals and wounding dozens, including European tourists.
Thai police say they have an idea who was responsible for a spate of bomb attacks Thursday and Friday that killed four people across the country’s south and injured over 30. He did not elaborate, but said police were gathering evidence and that worldwide militant groups were not believed to be behind the attacks.
Police chief Pongsapat Pongcharoen told reporters: “These acts were undertaken by a group in many areas simultaneously, following orders from one individual”. “It has something to do with anti-regime sentiments – anti-regime people who want to send a message that they don’t like the outcome of the referendum”.
The attacks came on a busy weekend for tourism as domestic and global visitors flocked to seaside resorts on a long weekend for a public holiday.
Thai police have come under fire in the past over investigations into high profile cases, including the brutal murders of two British backpackers on a tourist island in 2014.
Junta chief-cum Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said Friday that the people behind the bombings meant to “create chaos and confusion” because “the situation and the economy were being stabilized” after the “successful August 7 referendum, however other junta leaders have been more reserved about linking the violence to the political opposition”. A bomb disposal team defused both, and local police said the devices had been there since Wednesday.
The anti-government United Front For Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), known as the “red shirt” group and sympathetic to the Shinawatras, condemned the attacks in a statement on Sunday.
Pro-coup Democrat Party politicians have also denied the attacks were linked to a conflict within their ranks over a referendum on August 7, in which voters approved a military-backed constitution that weakens the power of political parties and perpetuates the military’s key role in government for the foreseeable future. The UDD said the junta may use the attacks as justification to stay in power longer.
Thailand has been divided for more than a decade between populist political forces led by Thaksin, who was toppled in a 2006 coup, and the royalist and military establishment, which accuses him of corruption.
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Southern militants fighting for greater autonomy have carried out sophisticated, coordinated attacks before, but most have hit three provinces in the far south that were not among those targeted last week.
