8 New Years Eve Bombs Shake Up Bangkok; At Least 2 More Defused

By Zachary Abuza

Six bombs were exploded nearly simultaneously across downtown Bangkok on New Years Eve as revelers began to turnout for dinner and the evening’s festivities. The first bomb exploded at the Victory Monument, an area crowded with food stalls, the terminus for small commuter vans from the northern districts. Subsequent bombings were at crowded locations, but not high profile ones and nowhere where the expat community and tourists would tend to congregate. These included two bombs in Klong Toey and in the parking lot of Bangkok’s largest Mall in an eastern district. The 6th bomb reportedly exploded in the movie theater in Bangkok’s newest and glitziest malls, the Siam Paragon.

Two more bombs were detonated just after midnight, this time in more heavily tourist areas. The first bomb exploded at a popular restaurant near the Pratunam Pier. Five people were wounded, including three foreigners, one of whom had his leg amputated. The second bomb went off in a pedestrian flyover that links two major malls, Central World and Gaesorn Plaza. A major concert that was supposed to take place outside Central World was earlier canceled. In addition, a suspected bomb was found in a crowded bar on Khao San road, the crowded backpacker quarter. A second bomb was found and disarmed at the Lumpini Night Bazaar.

So far there have been only three deaths reported, though there have been at least 38 people wounded.

Coup leader, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin has deployed additional soldiers from the 1st Army to Bangkok to help the police patrol the area. Martial law was recently lifted in the capital.

The low profile targets at first led me and other analysts that I spoke with to discount the involvement of Muslim militants from the deep south. The bombs at first seemed intended to provoke a domestic response, but not elicit much in the way of international attention. While I have long argued that they have never taken the option of targeting Bangkok off the table, nor are they ideologically against it, at the time they really don’t need to change their strategy. At this point the insurgents are winning (they certainly are not losing). The southern insurgents clearly have the technical capacity to execute large-scale bombings in Bangkok. On a daily basis they detonate far more powerful bombs than what went off in Bangkok. Yet, to carry out so many bombings would require an infrastructure in Bangkok that few would consider them to have. The bombs were also not like the ones usually employed by southern insurgents, in terms of composition or detonation device. The bombs in the south tend to be larger usually 5kg and often 10-15kg, and cell-phone detonated. The insurgents have tried for mass casualty attacks. The bombs in Bangkok could have been larger; the aim does not yet seem to be to create mass casualties.

While the southern insurgency cannot be ruled out, especially as more attacks on tourist venues were hit later in the evening, the prevailing wind in Bangkok is that the bombings were linked to elite political strife over the 19 September coup. There have been several bombings in Bangkok in the past few years, but all have been linked to elite conflicts, not the insurgency. Currently there are several hypotheses: It could be the police or other forces disgruntled with the military’s takeover. The police are wildly unhappy about the reforms that the military is going to soon force on the police. Yet, one of the bombs was placed at a small police kiosk wounding several police officers. It could have been the work of supporters of Thaksin simply out to discredit and destabilize the Council on National Security (CNS) and the government of Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont. Officials from former Prime Minister Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai Party have denied any involvement in the blasts. It is possible that it is also the military. Some are angry that Sonthi has not gone far enough in consolidating power, others might be frustrated that all legal efforts to go after Thaksin and his allegedly ill-gotten gains have failed. It is telling that unnamed sources from the told The Nation newspaper that the CNS was considering seizing Thaksin’s assets so that he could no longer destabilize the country. And of course, it could be the work of the southern insurgents. They clearly have the technical capacity to do this.

Security was clearly tightened at the new international airport. While it wasn’t in lockdown mode, there was far more security (taxis unable to cue, drop off points one lane further away from the terminal, pre-screening of bags upon entry to the terminal). Two large outdoor concert venues, with some several hundred thousand in attendance, were canceled.

Sky News has reported that one suspect has been arrested, allegedly carrying a bomb at the time. General Sonthi, who was on Haj in Mecca, immediately departed for Thailand.

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