Police are investigating a series o.
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Visitors to Thailand are being warned to be cautious after a series of bomb attacks in which four people died.
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 auto 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.
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.
“Hua Hin has never had a problem like this”, Nai Amporn, the owner of a beachside restaurant, told AFP.
(AP Photo/Penny Yi Wang).
A Thai police spokesman said a total of 10 foreign tourists were wounded, including two Italians and one Austrian.
The timing and scope suggested the bombs were set off by opponents of the nation’s ruling junta, which last weekend organised a successful referendum on a constitution that critics say will bolster the military’s power for years to come.
The violence appeared aimed at dealing a blow to Thailand’s tourism industry, which brings in crucial income to the government.
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.
The deputy police chief also said, public and holidaymakers should not panic over the situation as the security forces including the police and army have beefed up security on all public and tourist areas. The four who were killed were Thais.
The explosions injured more than 30 others in the city of Hua Hin on Thursday, 11 August, with a following wave of explosions in South Bangkok and on the islands of Phuket, Surat Thani and Trang. The victims include Thais and foreign tourists, whose nationalities were not immediately known, according to the reports. He said a Samsung cellphone had been recovered that they believe was used to detonate at least one the bombs.
The source who wished to remain anonymous following the sensitive nature of the information, said the mobile phone chip together with the serial number has been handed over to the Malaysian Police for further action. Police said they found evidence at his home and in electronic devices they had confiscated from him that he was involved in an active political movement against the government.
The United States, Britain, Australia and several other countries issued travel warnings to their nationals.
“I am afraid business will become slow – even this morning, you can see there are fewer people here for breakfast”. Pol. Lt Chaiyot Tisawong, an officer in Hua Hin, said 10 of the injured were foreigners.
Voters in three mostly Muslim southern provinces, where separatists have been fighting with the military for than a decade in an insurgency that has cost 6,500 lives, also voted against the new constitution, while the rest of the country accepted it.
The junta took power in the bitterly divided kingdom in 2014 after prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s government was booted from office. He vowed to keep working in order to make sure that “such awful acts” never happen again, so that the “nightmare” of the past few days would become just a fading memory.
Thai police patrol the area near the Erawan Shrine, the site of a bombing in August 2015 that left 20 dead and scores injured, in the center of Bangkok on Saturday as authorities increase security following a new string of bomb attacks in Thailand.
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Although two arrests were made in that case, a confusing investigation shook faith in the competence of the police and raised doubts about who were the true culprits.
