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| Southeast Asia |
| Link between Thai, India attacks found |
| 2012-02-16 |
| BANGKOK: Thai investigators believe they have found a link between this week’s bomb blasts in Bangkok and New Delhi, a security official said on Wednesday, two of three attacks Israel has blamed on Iran. “The individual was in possession of the same magnets and we are currently examining the source of the magnet,” National Security Council Secretary Wichian Podphosri said. A man carrying an Iranian passport lost a leg when a bomb he was carrying in Bangkok went off on Tuesday after an earlier explosion, apparently accidental, at a house he was renting. His other leg had to be amputated. The suspect, identified as Saeid Moradi, was in stable condition in a Bangkok hospital, although he remained unconscious after 10 hours of surgery, said hospital surgeon Suparung Preechayuth. Police said he had been charged with illegal possession of explosives, causing explosions, attempted murder and assaulting a police officer. Two other men shared the rented house with him. One was arrested at Bangkok’s international airport on Tuesday but he has not yet been charged. The other was arrested on Wednesday afternoon at Kuala Lumpur airport as he tried to board a plane to Tehran, Malaysian police said. The suspect, in his 30s, had evaded authorities at Bangkok airport and flown to Malaysia. Police Inspector General Ismail Omar said he was arrested on intelligence from Thai authorities and was being investigated for “terrorism activities” related to the Bangkok bombings. In the Bangkok attack, one bomb went off in the bombers’ home. Another was thrown at a taxi that wouldn’t take one of the men who left the house. The third blew off the man’s leg when he tried to throw it at police and it either went off before he could throw it or it hit something and ricocheted back at him. The American, British and Australian embassies in Bangkok told their citizens to be vigilant in light of the explosions but did not advise against travel to the capital. A day earlier in the Indian capital, a bomb wrecked a car taking an Israeli embassy official to pick up her children from school, police said. The woman was in stable condition on Wednesday after surgery to her spine and liver. Her driver and two passers-by suffered lesser injuries in the attack. On the same day, an attempt to bomb an Israeli embassy car in Tbilisi failed and the device was defused, Israeli and Georgian officials said. Israel’s ambassador to Thailand said the bombings in Bangkok, New Delhi and Tiblisi bore similarities. “If you put together all the details that we have until now, including the disclosure of the explosives, they are very similar, if not the same as that were used against our diplomats and our people in India and Georgia,” he told Thai TV. |
| Posted by:Steve White |