Explosions rocked seven provinces in Thailand’s south last Thursday and Friday, just days after Thais voted to accept a military-backed Constitution.
Advertisement
The conflict pits armed and organised ethnic Malays – nearly all of whom are Muslims – against the predominantly Buddhist Thai state.
Thailand’s deputy national police chief, Gen. Srivara Ransibrahmanakul, told reporters on Tuesday that he was seeking an arrest warrant to detain a man suspected of bombing a busy area of Patong beach in Phuket last week. Police said the numerous blasts was evidence of a network and that the perpetrators were believed to still be in Thailand.
“Tourism is the soft underbelly of Thailand”, Gillen said. More than 30 people were injured, including 10 foreign tourists from Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Austria.
Teo also met with the Thai Travel Agents Association president Suparerk Soorangura who announced that his group will visit the Philippines in September for the Philippine Travel Exposition and will tour the cities of Cebu, Davao and Cagayan de Oro.
The attacks – which included bombs in the popular tourist destinations of Hua Hin, Phuket and Phang Nga – were highly unusual in a country where foreign visitors are rarely caught up in political violence.
Thailand prior to the fatal bomb attacks was in the midst of a hard situation.
In a statement Sunday, the MCMC said it would work closely with police and other relevant agencies in tracking down the owner according to the serial of the phone.
“Despite the bomb attack at the Erawan Shrine in Bangkok in August 2015, Thailand’s visitors grew by 20% a year ago to 30 million travellers and the money they spent grew by 25% over the same period”.
Also on Sunday, Thai police said the attack had been orchestrated by a single person, without giving, however, any further details.
Some analysts said it was the work of Muslim rebels waging a long-running insurgency in Thailand’s southern tip, but Thai officials have dismissed that theory and also ruled out worldwide terrorist groups, insisting the bombings were acts of “local sabotage”.
The Thai junta has suggested political opponents were responsible, while police are prioritizing the theory that the attacks were by southern Muslim insurgents operating beyond their traditional powerbases of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat. “I’m too scared to go out”. He vowed to keep working in order to make sure that “such bad acts” never happen again, so that the “nightmare” of the past few days would become just a fading memory.
Most people there are ethnic Malay Muslims, who for decades have chafed under the rule of Buddhist-dominated governments in faraway Bangkok. Thai authorities blamed a people-smuggling gang taking revenge for a crackdown, but analysts suspect Uighur separatists angry that Thailand forcibly repatriated more than 100 Uighurs to China. The case has not yet come to trial.
No group has claimed responsibility for the wave of bombings, which sent shudders through the tourism industry, one of the few bright spots in Thailand’s sluggish economy. Injured foreigners came from Austria, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.
Other embassies in Thailand have warned their citizens to stay vigilant and some have warned that there could be more attacks.
Advertisement
At least 11 explosions have occurred across multiple locations in Thailand since Thursday, which appear to have targeted tourist locations and have so far resulted in casualties.
