An Iranian man was seriously wounded in Bangkok on Tuesday when a bomb he was carrying exploded and blew one of his legs off. Israel said the incident was an attempted terrorist attack by Iran.
Shortly before the man was wounded, there had been an explosion in a house the man was renting in Ekamai area, central Bangkok. Soon after that, there was a third blast on a nearby road, Thai police and officials said. “The police have control of the situation. It is thought that the suspect might be storing more explosives inside his house,” Thai government spokeswoman Thitima Chaisaeng said.
The police said they had apprehended another suspect at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport, one of two men who had been living at the house where the initial blast took place. “We discovered the injured man’s passport. It’s an Iranian passport and he entered the country through Phuket and arrived at Suvarnabhumi airport on the 8th (February),” police general Bansiri Prapapat said.
The three explosions in Bangkok came a day after bomb attacks targeted Israeli embassy staff in India and Georgia. Israel accused Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah of being behind those attacks. Iran denied involvement.
Thai officials declined to speculate on whether the two men they had detained were involved with any militant group, but Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak blamed Iran. “The attempted terrorist attack in Bangkok proves once again that Iran and its proxies continue to perpetrate terror,” Mr Barak said on a visit to Singapore.
Thai police said they were working to make safe the explosives found in the house. A taxi driver told Thai television the wounded suspect had thrown a bomb in front of his car when he refused to pick him up. Government spokeswoman Thitima said police had then tried to move in but he attempted to throw another bomb at them. It went off before he was able to do so, blowing one of his legs off. The other leg had to be amputated, a doctor said.