Six bombs hit Thailand's capital
BANGKOK (AFP) - At least 20 people have been injured in Bangkok night after six bombs exploded in the Thai capital, police said, as revellers were preparing to bring in the New Year.
The six explosions happened within 90 minutes of each other across Thailand's capital, and began at 5:20 pm (1020 GMT) on downtown Bangkok's Sukhumvit Road.
"There were six bombs in Bangkok this evening," Ajiravid Subarnbhesaj, national police spokesman, said at a press conference Sunday.
He said that no one had been killed in the New Year's Eve attacks, but Surachet Sathitniramai, the director for the government's medical information centre, said one person had died.
The first blast on Sukhumvit Road did not injure anyone, Ajiravid said. The most serious blast happened at Victory Monument in central Bangkok at 5:30 pm (1030 GMT), where thirteen people were injured, two seriously, he said.
Two bombs then hit police traffic posts almost simultaneously at about 6:00 pm (1100 GMT), police said.
One was at an intersection in the north of the city and injured two, and another exploded in the northern suburb of Nonthaburi. No one was injured there.
At about 6:30 pm (1130 GMT) a bomb exploded near a Chinese temple in Klong Toey district, downtown Bangkok, Ajiravid said, injuring five people including one child.
Anan Srihiran, police major general in charge of Klong Toey district, earlier told Thai television that the bomb went off at the district's food market.
"It was a bomb put in a garbage can in the centre of a fresh market of Klong Toey," he said, adding a 10-year-old child suffered a large leg wound.
Ajiravid, said the sixth bomb was put in a garbage can in a suburb on the way to Bangkok's new airport. It is not clear if anyone was injured there, or what time it happened.
Ajiravid urged people to be careful as they celebrated New Year, and asked the public to report any suspicious incidents.
It was not immediately clear if the bombs had anything to do with a military coup on September 19 that ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, or with an ongoing violent separatist insurgency in the kingdom's south.
Thailand's military-installed premier Surayud Chulanont had warned earlier this week of possible large-scale attacks by Islamic militants during the New Year holidays.
However, that warning was for the nation's restive Muslim-majority south, where an ongoing insurgency has killed 1,700 people since January 2004, but has rarely affected people outside the three provinces bordering Malaysia.
An intelligence source told AFP that the attacks were likely politically motivated.
"The bombs are not involved with southern unrest or even the hanging of Saddam. It is a political issue -- it is undercurrents and they plan to bomb 22 positions in the next few days," the source said, but did not elaborate.
There has been relatively little public resistance to the recent coup, with small protests going ignored by the ruling junta, despite the fact that martial law remains in force three months after the putsch.
A number of schools have been torched in Thaksin's stronghold in the north and northeast of the kingdom, and regional police said the arson attacks could be related to politics.
Thaksin was in New York when the military overthrew his twice-elected government. Since then, he has been living in self-imposed exile abroad and is currently staying in Beijing.
He has expressed a wish to come back to Thailand, but the military fear his return may galvanize his support the north and northeast and spark protests.
A spokesman for Surayud said the new prime minister was aware of the attacks, but did not know who was behind them.