Seven wounded as car bomb explodes inside mall at Thailand's tourist island Koh Samui
PUBLISHED : Saturday, 11 April, 2015, 4:11pm
UPDATED : Saturday, 11 April, 2015, 4:22pm
AFP and AP in Bangkok
Police inspect the charred remains of the pick-up truck in which the bomb was concealed. Photo: Reuters
A car bomb wounded seven people, including an Italian girl, when it exploded in the parking area of a shopping mall on the Thai tourist island of Samui today.
The improvised bomb was concealed in a pick-up truck and exploded late on Friday night in the basement of the Central Festival mall on Samui Island in Surat Thani province, after a fashion show, the island’s disaster prevention and mitigation chief Poonsak Sophonpathumrak said.
The official said “six Thais and a 12-year-old Italian girl were treated for minor injuries”, adding that they had all been released from hospital.
Poonsak said the bomb destroyed most of the pick-up truck and damaged a few other vehicles that were parked nearby at the mall, which is located a few hundred metres from the popular Chaweng beach.
“The authorities are still investigating the scene to find out more details before linking it to any insurgency groups,” he said.
Police said the truck, which reportedly had false number plates, had been stolen from Yala, one of Thailand’s three southernmost Muslim-majority provinces that have been scorched by a 10-year insurgency that has killed more than 6,300 people. However, the violence has rarely spilled to Samui.
“It’s a car bomb, but we cannot confirm what type of explosive materials they used,” said Lieutenant-General Prawut Thavornsiri, spokesman for Thai national police.
“The car used was a Mazda pick-up truck stolen from Yala,” he added, without specifying whether the blast was believed to be linked to the conflict hundreds of kilometres away.
A second policeman at the scene also said the blast was caused by a car bomb.
The bomb exploded while there were still late-night shoppers in the mall, where a fashion show was taking place. Photo: EPA
Bomb squad experts scoured the debris early Saturday in the underground car park for clues about who might be behind the attack, which comes as Thailand’s junta tries to reassure tourists about the kingdom’s safety as a holiday destination following a coup last May.
A Thai junta official linked the bombing to opposition groups. Major General Sansern Kaewkamnerd said initial reports indicated the attack was carried out by the same group behind recent blasts in the capital, Bangkok, which caused no fatalities.
He did not elabourate, but the leader of the junta that took power in a coup last May has blamed the Bangkok blasts on groups opposed to the military takeover.
Although the military lifted martial law last week, it maintained sweeping security powers citing the threat of political unrest.
Thai police are often accused of leaping to conclusions in the immediate aftermath of high-profile incidents. The Thai force came under fire for bungling the initial investigation and leaking erroneous information to the media during the probe into the murder of two British backpackers on Koh Tao island last year.
Samui is a wildly popular tourist island in the Gulf of Thailand and has rarely been a target of attacks in the past. Around 20 million visitors flock to Thailand each year and are a key part of the economy.
Thailand’s southern provinces bordering Malaysia, some 400 kilometres south of Samui, is home to a festering insurgency pitting Muslim rebels against security forces.
Thai police officers man a checkpoint outside the Koh Samui shopping mall a day after the bomb blast. Photo: AFP
Muslims in the area, which was an independent Islamic sultanate until it was annexed by Thailand in the early 20th century, have long complained of discrimination, and the insurgents are thought to be fighting for autonomy. The militants, however, have made no public pronouncements about their aims.
The majority of the victims of the war, which is characterised by near-daily bombings, shootings and even beheadings, have been civilians, yet the highly localised conflict remains off the international radar.
Experts say that is in part because the insurgents, who are seeking greater autonomy, have not launched attacks in Thailand’s better-known tourist areas outside of the South.
But deadly blasts have occasionally struck Hat Yai, the main commercial city in the south, which is popular with Malaysian tourists.
Thailand’s junta says it is trying to reboot peace talks with a patchwork of Muslim militant groups from the culturally distinct south, which was annexed by Thailand a century ago. But no date for the talks has been announced, while rights groups say killings of civilians and abuses by security forces are continuing.
Seven Thai security officials face murder charges after four unarmed Muslim men were gunned down in a botched raid on a remote farm in Pattani province in late March.
The case has revived the issue of extra-judicial killings in the south, which is cloaked by Thai security forces.
While the rebels eschew publicity, they have previously called for increased autonomy as well as an amnesty for their jailed fighters.
