WORLD / Asia-Pacific
Bombs end Bangkok's celebration
(AP)
Updated: 2007-01-01 09:00
Bangkok - Nine bombs exploded across Bangkok as the Thai capital
celebrated the New Year, killing two people and driving thousands of
revelers home after the city was forced to cancel festivities.
Hospital staff and officials said 34 people were injured, at least six of
them foreigners including one American.
There were two waves of bombings. Six nearly simultaneous explosions late
Sunday night killed at least two people and injured 26. Some initially
mistook the sound of the bombs for fireworks.
Bangkok Mayor Apirak Kosayothin canceled major public celebrations and
sent home about 5,000 gathered in Central World Plaza, the downtown venue
for Bangkok's main New Year countdown party.
After midnight, three more bombs went off near the same plaza, iTV
television reported. Eight people were injured in the later blasts, the
report said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombings, which
capped a year of unrest in Thailand that included a military coup three
months ago and a mounting Muslim insurgency in its southernmost provinces.
National police chief Gen. Ajirawit Suphanaphesat said he did not believe
insurgents were behind the attacks in Bangkok, a major international
banking and technology hub for Asia.
Police and army troops wielding assault rifles guarded some entertainment
venues, transit stations and busy traffic circles. Roadblocks were up on
some streets, while hotels stepped up security, searching cars and
canceling expensive New Year's Eve dinners.
Major public celebrations were also canceled in the northern city of
Chiang Mai.
But festivities continued in some areas of Bangkok, including the city's
most famous red light district, Patpong Road, where hundreds of foreign
tourists carried on celebrating. At midnight, fireworks lit up the sky in
both Bangkok and Chiang Mai, with many residents still gathered in the
streets of both cities.
Several embassies' Web sites advised their citizens to avoid Bangkok's
city center.
"There is a possibility of further attacks in coming days," said a travel
advisory from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
"Australians are urged to avoid unnecessary travel in Bangkok."
Bomb attacks are rare in the Thai capital.
Following the first wave of bombings, police said two people died at
hospitals. There were also 14 people seriously wounded, said Health
Minister Mongkol Na Songkhla.
"I heard a loud explosion and I thought it was fireworks. I ran there and
saw a bleeding woman at the bus stop," Somrak Manphothong, a receptionist
at the Saxophone bar near site of the first bombings. "Another guy was
lying on the floor, covered with blood, and his wife was shaking his
body."
At another site near a vegetable market in the Klong Toey slum, a pool of
blood and egg yolks covered the roadside beside an overturned motorcycle.
The three bombs that exploded just after midnight Monday were in a phone
booth, a hotel, and near a canal bridge in a touristy downtown area
packed with hotels and shopping malls.
The six foreigners were injured in the second set of blasts, according to
officials at the Police Hospital. They said one was an American. Doctors
were trying to save a Hungarian woman's badly injured leg, said hospital
spokeswoman Warin Detkung, denying earlier news reports that both her
legs had been blown off.
In September, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted in a bloodless
coup by Gen. Sondhi Boonyaratkalin. The military installed Surayud as the
interim prime minister until elections in October 2007.
But Thaksin still enjoys widespread support and a number of arson attacks
in provincial areas have been blamed on his followers.
"There are two potential suspects, Muslim insurgents and Thaksin's
residual power," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at
Chulalongkorn University. "I tend to think it's residual power. I suspect
the previous regime."
Thaksin's lawyer denied the former prime minister's involvement in the
bombings on the Web site of the newspaper Matichon.
Bombings and shootings occur almost daily in Thailand's three
southernmost provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani, where an Islamic
insurgency that flared in January 2004 has killed more than 1,900 people.
Muslims make up the majority in overwhelmingly Buddhist Thailand's deep
south, where they have long complained of discrimination.
The insurgents have carried out numerous attacks in the south, but are
not known to have launched any in Bangkok.
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