Thai police name 1 man as suspect in tourist spot bombings

Police identified a Thai man on Friday as a suspect in their investigation into attacks that killed four people and wounded dozens in a wave of bombings in Thailand’s south a week ago.

The attacks were highly unusual in a country where foreign visitors are rarely caught up in the country’s frequent bouts of political violence. Investigators have been under pressure to make quick arrests.

A second reported arrest has not been confirmed.

Instead they have hinted at involvement of factions within the so-called “Red Shirt” movement loyal to ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra. The police’s Crime Suppression Division said they were members of previously unknown group called the Revolutionary Front for Democracy Party, with the objective of opposing the military government.

Police earlier said that they had no information about the motives behind the attacks or the identities of the bombers.

Police said the group – many of whom are elderly – had in fact set up an illegal political party to overthrow the regime.

The statement said they now face one charge of breaching the junta’s ban on political gatherings and another of belonging to an unlawful secret society.

Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan and the national police chief on Friday denied the two cases were linked.

No arrests have been made for people directly responsible for the blasts.

According to the reporters, an arrest warrant had been issued for a resident of Narathiwat’s Tak Bai district who is reportedly on the run in Malaysia.

“There is no evidence linking them to the bomb attacks in the seven southern provinces based on our investigation, although some of them are involved with lese majeste [royal defamation] and arms trafficking”, said Major General Chayaphol Chatchaidej, a senior official at the Office of Police Strategy.

But police and the military quickly ruled out global terrorism, saying the perpetrators were “local saboteurs”.

A number of analysts say the most likely culprits are therefore Islamist militants who have fought a lengthy but local insurgency in Thailand’s three southernmost provinces.

More than 61 percent of voters said “yes” to the constitution, especially in the predominantly Buddhist southern provinces affected by the bombings – however, “no” votes, abstentions and spoiled ballots prevailed in the deep “Muslim south” affected by the decades-old insurgency.

He added that Ahama had not yet been detained and police were unsure if he was still in Thailand. Since the coup, the military have often led national security investigations before handing the task of charging over to police.

The deadly attacks came ahead of a national holiday marking the birthday of Queen Sirikit and just before the anniversary of a blast in downtown Bangkok last August that killed 20 people, mainly ethnic Chinese tourists, in the deadliest such attack to hit the country in recent years.