Former global striker Armstrong also spoke of his horror in the wake of 11 blasts within 18 hours in cities and resort towns across southern Thailand, which left at least four people dead and dozens more wounded. Those detained have been identified in by Thai media as political activists opposed to the country’s ruling military junta. Taking advantage of political semi-deadlock, between supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, who was serving as prime minister, and other political elements, the Thai military carried out yet another coup d’etat in 2014. “None of them would condone such evil acts”.
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Also on Sunday, Thai police said the attack had been orchestrated by a single person, without giving, however, any further details. Thai authorities have suggested there were political motives behind the violence, but named no specific suspects.
Thai security forces have asked for Malaysia’s help to look into the owner of a phone that may be used in one of several bombings that struck Thailand over Thursday and Friday, Bernama news agency reported on Sunday.
During the TV broadcast prime minister expressed sorrow for families of the dead victims and for the injured, both Thais and foreigners and pledged full rehabilitation and compensation for victims.
The sector accounts for at least 10% of an economy which the military government has struggled to revive.
The military also dismissed a rumour that soldiers were behind the blasts.
This compared with 32 incidents in all of August 2015, the lowest level of violence for 12 years.
“The military will never harm the people”.
All of the 11 bomb blasts were in South Thailand with the exception of Hua Hin, which is around 200 km (125 miles) from Bangkok.
Eleven bombs went off in five provinces – Surat Thani, Trang, Prachuap Khiri Khan, Phuket and Phang Nga – while arson attacks took place in Krabi and Nakhon Si Thammarat. At this time, authorities do not believe the attacks were a result of global terrorism, nor were they potentially related to the Erawin Shrine bombings which killed 20 people nearly exactly one year ago.
When a devastating bomb hit Bangkok a year ago, killing 22 people and wounding more than 125, the government issued several contradictory statements over the ensuing weeks, eventually announcing it was the work of a human smuggling network.
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.
Police said DNA samples gathered at bomb sites would be compared with DNA samples stored in databases in the south.
Security experts say the bombs are not hard to construct, with instructions available on the internet.
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Hua Hin, where miles of high-rise hotels line the Gulf of Thailand coast, was the scene of the worst wave of bombs.
