Five wounded in Bangkok bomb attacks

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BANGKOK (AP) — Three explosions in Bangkok have wounded four Thai civilians and blown off the legs of a foreigner whom police blamed for the violence.

Police Col. Warawut Taweechaikarn said the injured foreigner was Iranian. That report could not be immediately confirmed.

Warawut said one blast occurred inside a house. Grenades caused one blast that partially destroyed a taxi, and another that damaged a telephone booth outside a Thai school.

According to Israel Radio, the house was occupied by at least three Iranians, including the bomber. After the bomb went off, the man fled the house, and was chased by police. Israel Radio also reported two of the injured were Iranian.

Bloomberg reported that the explosive devices were M-26 grenades and that the fleeing man threw one at the taxi after the driver refused him entry to the vehicle. An eye witness said that the fleeing man then threw another explosive at a pursuing policeman but that the device went off early resulting in injuries to the terrorist. Police are searching for two other people who rented the house with the injured man, and who were seen leaving the scene.

A picture posted on Twitter purportedly showed a wounded man laying on a sidewalk strewn with broken glass outside the school, his legs apparently sheered off.

Doctor Suwinai Busarakamwong said three Thai men and one Thai woman were brought to Kluaynamthai Hospital for treatment.

Several Thai television stations reported the wounded man was carrying explosives at the time. They said an identification card found in a satchel nearby indicated the man may have been of Iranian desent. It was not possible to independently confirm those reports, however.

Police Col. Sittiphab Baiprasert told The Associated Press the blasts occurred about 100 yards (meters) apart on Sukhumvit Soi 71, a multilane thoroughfare that is home to businesses and apartment blocks. He gave no other details.

Local news reports said traffic on the road had been halted while authorities investigated.

Thailand has rarely been a target for foreign terrorists, although a domestic Muslim insurgency in the country’s south has involved bombings of civilian targets.

Last month, a foreign suspect with alleged links to Hezbollah militants led Thai police to a warehouse filled with more than 8,800 pounds (4,000 kilograms) of urea fertilizer and several gallons of liquid ammonium nitrate.

At the time, the US Embassy had issued an “emergency message” warning of a possible terror threat against Americans in Bangkok and Israel warned its citizens to be on alert as well. A dozen other embassies then urged their own nationals to exercise caution. Thai authorities, though, said Thailand appeared to have been a staging ground but not the target of any attack.

Tuesday’s explosions in Bangkok came one day after a motorcycle assailant in New Delhi attached a bomb to an Israeli diplomatic vehicle, wounding four people, including an Israeli Embassy driver and a diplomat’s wife. Israel blamed that attack on Iran or its proxies, claims Iran has denied.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Tuesday that he had no concrete information as to whether the suspected Iranian national is part of a Tehran-backed terror cell that was planning to carry out another attack against Israeli targets. “At this point, we can’t rule out any possibility, but it is too early to tell,” he told The Times of Israel.

Another Israeli official hinted that it was plausible to assume the man was planning to attack Israelis. “What is an Iranian doing in Bangkok running around with grenades?” he asked.