Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said they received a fragment has the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission’s (MCMC) serial number on it.
Advertisement
It was not clear who was behind the attack, but the timing suggested it might be an effort to embarrass the military government that took power two years ago.
Visitors to Thailand are being warned to be cautious after a series of bomb attacks in which four people died.
(AP Photo/Jerry Harmer). Investigators work at the scene of an explosion in the resort town of Hua Hin, 240 kilometers (150 miles) south of Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, Aug. 12, 2016.
Dozens of people were wounded in the blasts on Thursday and Friday, including 11 foreigners.
The explosions all occurred south of Bangkok and several of the blasts – including one on Patong beach in the tourist resort of Phuket – appeared created to hit the tourism industry.
Thailand’s military government will undoubtedly probe its primary political rivals, namely the opposition Pheu Thai party it ousted in a 2014 coup and their “Red Shirt” supporters in the north and northeast. It was unclear if it was related to the Hua Hin blasts. The city is home to a swath of beachfront resorts as well as a royal palace.
Separate blasts were reported elsewhere in the south. It was for years the favorite seaside retreat of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world’s longest reigning monarch.
The latest troubles began Thursday afternoon, when a bomb exploded in the southern province of Trang an area full of attractive beaches and tourist islands killing one person and injuring six, according to police.
He looked outside the bar and said saw people running. Half an hour later, he made it back to his hotel. On the way, he said he saw “a good few people injured and the whole area just panicking. the whole area was just shut down with police cars, ambulances”.
The bombs were hidden inside two potted plants and were detonated by remote control about half an hour apart, said Gen. Sithichai Srisopacharoenrath, the superintendent of police in Hua Hin.
According to security sources, Thailand sought Malaysia’s cooperation to investigate a mobile phone used in one of the bomb blasts in Phuket, yesterday, which is said to have originated from Malaysia.
The fatality Thursday was described in Thai media as a female street food vendor. “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.
The wounded foreigners included nationals of Austria, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. One exploded on popular Loma Beach in Phuket city’s Patong district, injuring one person. But he said the bombings adhered to “a similar pattern used in the southern parts of the country” – referring to a low-level insurgency in the country’s Islamic south that has continued for more than a decade and killed more than 5,000 people.
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 this week.
Former PTP prime ministers Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister Yingluck Shinawatra are closely aligned with the “United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship” also known as the “Red Shirts”.
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. Critics say it is undemocratic and is fashioned to keep the military in control for at least five more years even if a free election is held.
Advertisement
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha hinted that political opponents of the military junta could be behind the attacks.
